1 



Malthie Davenport Bahcoch 



A Reminiscent Sketch and iMemorial 



By Charles E, Robinson, D, D. 



God's endless love ! What will it be 
When earthly shadoivs jiee auoay. 
For all eternity' s bright day 

The unfolding of that love to see I 

M. D. B. 




New York Chicago Toronto 
Fleming H. Revell Company 
London and Edinburgh 




NOV 14 iyU4 

Copyrigi.t tntry 
CLASS A XXc. NOi 




New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 

Chicago: 63 Washington Street 
Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 30 St. Mary Street 



To Katharine Tallman Babcock, 
Wife of 
Maltbie Davenport Babcocky 
This book is affectionately dedicated by the devoted 
friend of them both. 

Charles E. Robinson. 



This is the death of Death, to breathe away a 
breath 

And know the end of strife, and taste the 
deathless life. 

And joy without a fear, and smile without a 
tear 

And work, nor care, nor rest, and find the last 
the best. — M. D. B. 



Preface 



HESE pages are not designed to 



afford a philosophic study of Dr. 



Babcock's life, nor an analysis of the 
sources of his remarkable power, but just 
what the name given them indicates. They 
took shape first in the form of a biographical 
sketch, which the writer was requested to 
prepare for the students of Auburn Theolog- 
ical Seminary, while there two years ago, 
during the year of Professor Hoyt's absence 
in Europe; his lifelong intimacy with Dr. 
Babcock and his family being the reason for 
the request. 

The earnest desire expressed by many 
friends to have this sketch put in more per- 
manent form, is the excuse for its publica- 
tion. To do so required its enlargement 




7 



8 



Preface 



sufficient to reach the proportions of this 
little book. It is not a life of Dr. Babcock, 
and should not be measured by the stand- 
ards of a biography. 

As it was not thought best to eliminate 
the personal features of the sketch, several 
claiming that it was just what they wanted, 
it has taken the shape and title of "A Rem- 
iniscent sketch " of a Hfe too attractive and 
beautiful, too noble and helpful to have no 
memento. Now that it is prepared it seems 
wholly inadequate. 

It is impossible to write of Dr. Babcock in 
terms less than superlative. To do so would 
lead one to incur the chiding of his other 
friends. The quotations appended at the 
end of the volume, are not only to give the 
pathetic tributes to his memory, but to show 
that those who wrote them came also under 
the same spell of his short but memorable 
career. 

C. E. R. 

Pelham Manor, N. T., 
October, igo4. 



Contents 



I. CHILDHOOD . . . .II 

II. COLLEGE DAYS . . .19 

III. SEMINARY LIFE ... 29 

IV. LOCKPORT .... 47 

V. BALTIMORE . . . .71 

VI. HIS WORK IN THE SCHOOLS 

AND COLLEGES ... 89 

VII. NEW YORK . . . .109 
Vin, IN MEMORIAM . . .135 



9 



I 

CHILDHOOD 



When I was a child — / spake as a child, I un- 
derstood as a child, I thought as a child. — Paul. 

And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the 

working whence grew 
Such result as from seething grape-bundles the spirit 

strained true: 
And the friends of thy boyhood — that boyhood of 

wonder and hope 
Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the 

eye's scope, 

— Browning. 



it 



At about tour years of age. 



I 



CHILDHOOD 

HE remembrance of Maltbie Bab- 



cock's childhood, takes me back in 



thought to the earlier period when I 
first met his mother before her marriage. I 
seem to be once more at Hamilton College, 
sitting in the window of my room in " Mid- 
dle College, South Hall Third front middle." 
I see again the lithe girlish form of a young 
lady, who with elastic step is crossing the 
campus. It was Miss Emily Maltbie, who 
was going from the residence of her late 
grandfather, Ex-President Davis of the col- 
lege, where his widow a notably brilliant and 
attractive woman was then residing, and 
where Miss Maltbie was passing the summer, 
to call on Mrs. President North on the south 
side of the college grounds. 

Soon after that I was presented to her, 




14 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

and subsequently was permitted to be very 
intimate in her family at Syracuse, after her 
marriage. It would require a separate article 
to pay any adequate tribute to the rare quali- 
ties of mind, heart and soul of the mother of 
Maltbie Babcock. Her memory is an inspi- 
ration not only to her children, but to all 
who knew her, and who came within the 
wide circle of her intense spiritual life. 

Mr. Henry Babcock, her husband, was an 
attractive, charming man, socially promi- 
nent in Syracuse. In his youth at school 
at " the Homer Academy," he became an 
intimate friend of him who is now the 
eminent missionary at Beirut, Syria, the 
Rev. Henry H. Jessup, D. D. 

Mr. and Mrs. Babcock lived with Mrs. 
Babcock's mother, the widow of the Rev. 
Ebenezer Davenport Maltbie, at one time pas- 
tor of Hamilton College Chapel. Mrs. Malt- 
bie's residence was in a quite stately house, 
situated in the centre of a large lawn on 
James Street, corner McBride Street, in one of 



Childhood 1 5 

the most attractive quarters of the city of Syra- 
cuse. It has since been removed to a lower 
part of the lot, and now faces McBride Street, 
and although somewhat reduced in size, its 
lovely interior, as the home of Mr. Howard 
N. Babcock, Dr. Babcock's oldest brother, 
still shows what the place once was. 

It was the home of quiet, cultured, refined 
women, hushed to specially low voices, and 
silent step, because of the presence for many 
years of an invahd cousin, a woman of much 
beauty, but who never left her suite of 
rooms, and was rarely seen, save by her 
nurse, and at certain hours of the day by 
some of the members of the family. Mrs. 
Maltbie, with her tall form, dignified pres- 
ence, in white hair and widow's weeds, and 
her turban-like cap of white lace with its 
long lace strings, and with a look of other 
worldliness in her saintly " slow wise smile," 
gave an added charm to the strange quiet of 
the house. Her two daughters, trained to 
the greatest reverence for her, never thought 



1 6 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

of questioning her judgment or author- 
ity. 

The introduction of a boy like Maltbie 
into that house, followed in successive years 
by other boys and girls, full of Hfe and child- 
hood's enterprise, entirely reversed the order 
of that quiet household. Maltbie was a boy 
to be reckoned with. And this venerable 
stately Mrs. Maltbie, accustomed to the un- 
questioning veneration of her children, found 
this " human boy " an astounding revelation. 
His merry voice ringing through the house, 
his unvelveted tread, his mischievous pranks, 
some of which he dared to play upon his 
grandmother even, and his startling, unin- 
vited intrusions upon the heretofore silent 
sanctity, and almost awe-inspiring mystery 
of the sick-room, brought a new life into the 
still house ; and they all delighted in it, even 
the invalid. 

Into this refined home, where to know 
Mrs. Maltbie well was almost like a liberal 
education to any young man privileged to 



At about fourteen years of age. 



Childhood 17 

be intimate there, Maltbie Davenport Bab- 
cock was born August 3d, 1858. His child- 
hood was very attractive. He was a robust, 
independent boy ; sometimes willful, very 
merry, often full of mischief, and from the 
first he showed a great deal of character. In 
his boyhood he was a leader in sport, a mas- 
terful boy. He came to be early a fine singer, 
and a very proficient player on several mu- 
sical instruments, notably, the organ, the 
piano, and the viola. 

When he was about fourteen years old he 
organized an orchestra, composed of boys 
about his own age, and when such things 
were not as common as they are now; he 
also arranged the music for it. At sixteen 
he was a recognized champion baseball 
player, being specially noted as a pitcher. 
During his ministry his reputation as an 
athlete, and his taste for athletic pursuits fol- 
lowed him. The boys of the town, as well 
as those of his parish, would involuntarily 
get up their muscle as they saw him coming 



1 8 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

near, assuring themselves that what he did 
not know about athletics was not worth 
knowing. 

In that boyhood he was clean of speech, 
and made short work of rude fellows of the 
baser sort. A story is told that when a big 
boy, on the baseball grounds, was persist- 
ently annoying and bullying the younger 
ones, and defiling the air with his profane 
and unchaste speech, Maltbie took him by 
the nape of the neck and the seat of his 
trousers, and flinging him over the fence, 
hurled after him the familiar phrase " Over 
the fence is out." He was, at that early age, 
a very successful Sunday-school teacher, and 
a woman who had a class next to his, used 
to say that she could hardly keep her atten- 
tion on her lesson and her own class, she 
was so eager to hear what " that Babcock 
boy " was saying to his class, and to note 
the deft ingenious way he managed his rest- 
less pupils. 



II 

COLLEGE DAYS 



Ohy the wild joys of livingy the leapifig from rock up 
to rock — 

Hozv good is matins life, the mere living how fit to 
employ 

All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in 

— Browning. 

This is my Father'* s world. 
Dreamingy I see His face. 
I ope my eyesy and in glad surprise 
Cryy " The Lord is in this place. ''^ 

— M. D. B. 



II 



COLLEGE DAYS 

IN the autumn of 1875 he entered 
Syracuse University. He was there 
also the leader of an orchestra, the 
leader of a glee club, president of a base- 
ball club, and in the front rank in his class. 
At the same time he was so much a part 
of the social life of Syracuse, that he was 
wanted in all directions by adults and young 
people alike. A social function was hardly 
considered a success if he could not be pres- 
ent. Even then his mental alertness, and 
the multiform character of his work were 
very noticeable. One day I said to him, 
knowing how well he stood in his studies, 
in the midst of all this social diversion, 
" Maltbie, how do you contrive to do it all ? 
When do you study?" "Why, Uncle 
Charlie," a title expressive of family in- 
21 



22 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

timacy and not of blood relation, " you 
know that the University is a long distance 
from home. I almost always walk home 
alone, and as I carry my books with me I 
generally have my lessons by the time I 
reach there." At that early period in his 
life, he had acquired the habit, which was so 
characteristic of Carlyle, of grasping what 
was on the book's page without exactly 
reading the words. He could tell, in giving 
one passing glance at a shop window, what 
was there on exhibition, sometimes naming 
as many as forty or fifty different articles. 

His nervous energy, which to quote Dr. 
Purves's reference to him, " was the symptom 
of the intensity of his life," led him to leave 
the social and college round on his first long 
vacation to spend his summer on a farm, as 
a " farmhand." He desired to get as near as 
possible to nature's heart; he knew that 
there was entirely another side of hfe, than 
the one he was leading as a favorite in col- 
lege and in society, and he wanted to be 



College Days 23 



familiar with it. He was sure that there 
was much interest and happiness to be 
found in Hfe, away from what was regarded 
as essential in conventional society. A 
typical Irishman and he were the only 
" hands " on the little farm. Life was quite 
primitive — the work was the hardest, the 
diet the simplest. Instead of becoming 
homesick and disheartened, he found a cer- 
tain relish and enjoyment in adjusting him- 
self to circumstances. 

Pat was an unfaiHng source of interest and 
entertainment to him, as, for years after- 
wards, he became to those to whom Maltbie, 
with inimitable drollery would recount that 
summer's experience. 

The young collegian was boon compan- 
ion, and inspiring instructor to the ignorant 
Irishman. Finding him utterly in the dark 
about the moon's phases, and ignorant of 
the source of its brightness, as he was also 
of all the movements of the heavenly bodies, 
Maltbie turned the corn-field into a lecture 



24 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

room on astronomy. At one time Pat stood 
for the earth, and Maltbie revolved around 
him as the moon, turning to him now a full 
face, and then a quarter, and so on. At an- 
other time, Maltbie's hoe was stuck in the 
ground to represent the sun, and the rake 
illustrated the earth's distance from it, and 
was made to circle around it. Meanwhile, 
Pat leaning on his hoe, smiled on the beam- 
ing face of his young professor in astronomy, 
and with a mild expression, out of regard to 
the feelings of his conscientious comrade, 
but wholly inadequate to express his feelings 
he said, " Phwat a big thing an eddycation 
do be." The summer outing was an entire 
success, and the now brown and stalwart 
young fellow returned to Syracuse, with a 
stock of health and of stories which seemed 
never failing. More than one boy in sub- 
sequent years, under the fascination of 
Maltbie's recounting the humorous and 
strenuous incidents of that summer, followed 
his example, as some of the farmers in that 



College Days 25 



region may remember, but alas ! they missed 
Pat and Maltbie alike. 

By the time he came to his senior year, he 
had made such an impression upon his rela- 
tives and family friends, with respect to his 
diversified gifts, that his own family became 
greatly perplexed by their suggestions, as to 
what he should be and what he should do in 
life. There was a distinguished army ofificer, 
a resident of Syracuse, and a friend of the 
family, who was sure that this brave, stal- 
wart, fine appearing young fellow should be 
a soldier. A cultured relative opposed that 
suggestion. Why ! he was born for a bril- 
liant literary career. A prominent lawyer, 
and a close family friend was certain that 
they would make a great mistake if they did 
not put him in the law. There was not a 
department in law in which he would not be 
eminently successful, especially as an advo- 
cate. An uncle well known in political 
circles, and a member of Congress thought 
they should enter him on a life of public 



26 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

service. A well known organist pointed to 
his remarkable musical gifts, not short of 
genius, and marvelled that they could not see 
a something perhaps greater than Mendels- 
sohn in him; not merely a musician, but 
one having all the essentials to a great com- 
poser. But the pastor said that, without 
question he should be a minister of the 
gospel. 

It is an interesting fact in considering his 
unique personality, that undoubtedly he 
would have been eminently successful in any 
one of these lines of service. Both his 
parents inclined very decidedly to that last 
thought of his calling. But at the same 
time they did not wish to constrain him to 
select that profession, lest his strongest 
motive should be to gratify them. I was at 
that time the pastor of the First Presbyterian 
Church of Rochester, and Maltbie was a 
frequent and welcome visitor at our home, 
and already almost as a son to us. His 
parents wrote me, urging me to use my in- 



College Days 27 

fluence to help him to decide his profession, 
especially looking towards the ministry. We 
invited him to spend the Thanksgiving of his 
senior year in the University at Syracuse, 
with us at Rochester, and with him another 
attractive, scholarly, devout, musical, and 
socially dehghtful young friend, then a stu- 
dent at Auburn Theological Seminary and, 
now, its distinguished Greek professor who 
knew what Maltbie's parents and we desired 
to secure. They roomed together, and before 
the visit was over Maltbie had decided for the 
ministry. 



Ill 

SEMINARY LIFE 



But when I became a man I put away childish 
things. — Paul. 

Then onward through sunshine and storm and night 

No tarrying here, my soul; 
Thou musty if thou read thy chart aright 

Push steadily on to thy goal. 

— M. D. B. 



Do it now. 

— The lifelong motto of M. D. B. 



Ill 



SEMINARY LIFE 
ROM that moment, " this one thing I 



do," characterized him. Everything 



in his Hfe about which there might be 
a question, in such a profession, but which 
had never been questioned in his glad, free, 
social Hfe, he dropped without any hesitation 
or boggle over what he should give up. 
There was no talk about " giving up any- 
thing." He felt that in his decision he had 
taken on, and had taken in so much more 
that was delightful and glorious. 

The first day that he reached Auburn 
Seminary, quoting the phrase commonly ap- 
plied to the inmates of quite another institu- 
tion at Auburn, he said, with characteristic 
humour, " Well, fellows, I have been sent up 
for three years." 

He showed his self-mastery in this new 




32 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

life. He was heart and soul with the fellows 
in their gatherings, and yet no social 
pleasures, no indulgence in appetite, no 
temptation to late hours were ever allowed 
to unfit him for his work. Classmates, with 
occasional simple and harmless midnight 
spreads, used to be almost provoked at him. 
" Oh, come, don't go off to bed now, just 
at the cream of the evening. Stay and make 
a night of it." — " No, fellows, the work to- 
morrow demands my best physical condi- 
tion." 

His very unusual musical gifts at the organ, 
piano and viola naturally gathered around 
him all the musically inclined in the seminary, 
and without any question he was their leader. 
The devotional music uniformly good in 
that Institution took on it new qualities 
of fitness, sweetness, and power. There was 
that unmistakable precision, movement, ring 
which reveals a director. A seminary quar- 
tette was organized, by which music of a 
high order was so well sung, that the quar- 



Seminary Life 33 

tette was wanted to sing, here and there, in 
Auburn, and in surrounding towns and cities 
for the benefit of missionary societies, etc. 
Their concert given in the First Presbyterian 
Church at Rochester, to aid the Mission Band, 
to an audience distinguished for its size, 
quality, and genuine hearty appreciation, is 
still recalled with pleasure in that church. 

With his love for athletic sports, and 
conscious of the theological students' need 
of a virile frame, and quickened heart-throbs, 
his eye readily discerned the opportunities 
for boating on the lovely Lake Owasco. 
Those who accompanied him will never for- 
get the rowing on that lake, the songs, the 
hilarity and good cheer, which he never 
failed to start, calling out in others their per- 
haps latent capacities for enjoyment and hu- 
mour. One young man, whose pastor wished 
him to decide to enter Auburn, and who 
gave him a letter of introduction to Maltbie, 
found the spirit, enthusiasm and consecration 
of that coterie of fellows, a delight to him, 



34 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

and a ride with them on the lake, among 
other very interesting things, joining his own 
exquisite tenor to their harmonious voices, 
while they now floated on the lake, and now 
almost flew, as they plied their oars, helped 
him to decide to be one with them in his 
theological studies. 

Maltbie Babcock had early learned what 
Paul meant by " keeping his body under," 
not to impoverish it, for he had a magnificent 
physical frame, muscles like iron, and form 
sinewy, athletic and graceful ; but he " kept 
his body under " to give it its best, the con- 
trol of his higher nature, as the basket is kept 
under the balloon that it may rise with it. 
His fellow students came to regard their as- 
sociation with him at that period of their 
hves, as among their choice privileges. Their 
affectionate reference to him, when at the 
Alumni gathering at the Commencement 
after his death, and at the twentieth anniver- 
sary of the graduation of their class in 1902 
showed how vividly they recalled what he had 



Seminary Life 35 

been to them. But when he graduated, in- 
stead of appearing on the Commencement 
platform with an elaborate effort to display 
his gifts, his oration was simply a manly sum- 
mons to a consecrated life. 

At the close of his junior year, he was in- 
vited to supply the pulpit in a little farming 
community not very far from Syracuse, where 
the small church had been sometime without 
a pastor, and the good people were hungry 
for religious services. They welcomed his 
advent heartily, and he at once threw him- 
self with enthusiasm into the work. He 
seemed to be everywhere. There was not a 
house at " the corners," or in the surrounding 
country, which he did not visit, and where he 
did not win, at once, all hearts by his frank, 
genuine interest, his sincerity and his marked 
personality. 

The little church building was soon filled 
on Sabbath mornings. Farmers accustomed 
perhaps to tones of voice in the pulpit, and 
methods of presenting truth, which suggested 



36 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

and helped on the tendency to summer 
somnolence, waked up. Their boys, who it 
may be during the service, had willingly kept 
guard of the horses in the sheds surrounding 
the church, and may not have thought that 
the preaching had in it anything for them, 
were in the galleries with interested faces 
and alert minds. Here was a very cultivated 
young gentleman, evidently accustomed to 
move in what they may have called higher 
circles, who knew all about farming — who 
understood their lives, who spoke their lan- 
guage, and who had found his way to their 
hearts. It was no perfunctory service for the 
sake of getting his hand in, and securing the 
summer's stipend. He had the same eager 
earnestness to catch men, which through sub- 
sequent years gave such power to his min- 
istry. 

One Sunday, while he was there, quite a 
number of his society friends in Syracuse 
got up a party to drive out and hear him 
preach. Without really intending it, and 



Seminary Life 37 

with no thought of being irreverent, it was 
nevertheless somewhat of a Sunday lark. 
As they drove along, they amused them- 
selves over what would be his astonishment 
to see them enter the church. They 
prophesied that they would make him 
laugh. They had no idea how far the 
spirit of his work was in his very blood. 
They found the church full, with the ex- 
ception of two empty pews in front. They 
filed in before that audience, and that sur- 
prised preacher with illy concealed smiles. 
But to the young minister it was his op- 
portunity to let them know how the love of 
his work possessed his soul, and to help 
them into a new and better religious life. 
He was quickened to unusual earnestness 
and power in preaching, and these city 
friends who had come to smile remained to 
pray. And some of them who had won- 
dered why he, so fitted to shine in and adorn 
society, and to make a great success in the 
world, should enter the ministry, found out 



38 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

then. It was wholly characteristic of him ; 
with the keenest sense of humour where 
humour was in place, himself the very soul 
of wit, he was, from the first, no trifler, and 
he rose to the height of the occasion. 

All who knew him, while he was in the 
seminary, agree that his course was notable 
for his varied gifts, his personal magnetism, 
and his methodical habits. His room was a 
model of neatness, order and the display of 
excellent taste. There was something al- 
most like genius in his ability to take the 
commonest things, and combine them to 
produce the most artistic effects. With 
little or no expense, he made his study in 
the seminary building attractive enough to 
satisfy the most refined and exacting taste. 
He could have turned a woodshed into a 
bower of delight. Later in life, while at the 
manse in Baltimore, he had a workshop, 
where during a severe and prolonged illness 
of Mrs. Babcock, when it was necessary for 
him to be in the house, he made very pretty 



Seminary Life 39 

little desks and cabinets, highly finished. 
His carpenter tools he had arranged on the 
walls of his workshop like pictures. His 
plumbing tools, and many other implements 
for working in iron, were hung in a way 
to suggest that some artist in iron, from 
old Nuremburg, had strayed there. I am 
not sure but that he had a shoemaker's 
kit, for there seemed to be nothing which 
he could not do, and in a masterly manner, 
from mending a shoe to painting a picture, 
from playing a jewsharp, which he could do 
in a fascinating way, to the most bewilder- 
ing and delightful harmonies, from any 
form of attractive speech, to an enthrone- 
ment of pulpit power. Like Henry Drum- 
mond, whom he seems to have resembled in 
many ways, he could wear nothing that did 
not seem to be in " good form." His artistic 
taste showed itself here, as elsewhere. He 
was always most fittingly dressed for every 
occasion. The outing apparel, which in 
others might be ungainly and slouching, in 



40 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

him always took on, in the same strange 
way, an air of elegance, even to his bathing 
suit; which as he came from the water 
seemed to emphasize his manly bearing. 

His industry, during his seminary course, 
was a marked feature of his student hfe. 
His notes of the lectures of his teachers were 
even then a prophecy of what he was to be 
in thoroughness. His annotating his books 
was a special feature of his study. He de- 
veloped a system, then, of collecting mate- 
rial, gleaning from all fields, which was one 
of the secrets of his success in later life. 
After he entered the ministry, he carried out 
that plan very fully. In general, instead of 
taking the time in the morning to read the 
newspapers, he would give a sweeping glance 
over them, marking with a coloured pencil 
such editorial articles as he deemed of serv- 
ice to him, and his wife, or later on his 
secretary would cut them out, and place 
them in order in the various pigeonholes 
designed for them. When he was in Balti- 



Seminary Life 41 

more, being requested to give, in a very 
short time, a lecture on Calvin, to the stu- 
dents of Johns Hopkins University, he 
wondered where he should get the material 
for it, but found in his collection, the result 
of years of accumulation, that he had already 
about all that was necessary, as a basis to 
work on, in preparing the lecture. It was 
during the vacation of the Middle Seminary 
year, that he spent two weeks with us at our 
then summer home, at Washington, Litch- 
field County, Connecticut. The young people 
who were gathered there that summer, the 
spirit of the place, the lovely scenery, and 
the opportunities for fishing and boating on 
the Wauramaug Lake, for baseball, and for 
croquet on the village green, and for music 
in almost every house around the green, into 
which the social life ebbed and flowed, with 
the most charming freedom, and the uncon- 
ventionality of true culture, were just suited 
to him, and he gave himself up to it with a 
zest peculiar to him. His enjoyment in, and 



42 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

enthusiasm over such outings were conta- 
gious. There, as everywhere else, he fasci- 
nated the hearts of his friends. He was 
continually surrounded with a raft of admir- 
ing young people. They had been waiting 
for him. He was already like a brother to 
our sons, and through them, the others had 
come to anticipate eagerly his arrival. The 
carriage conveying him from the station at 
the foot of the hill to the house on the green 
was filled with welcoming fellows, and as it 
appeared, it was hailed w^ith a shout. A 
college song was started, and he reached the 
house amid a resounding chorus. Within 
ten minutes he had doffed his travelHng suit, 
and had donned his outing clothes, and was 
at the piano. It was an old instrument, 
happily accustomed to hard usage. As he 
sat there, with one boy leaning on his 
shoulder, another seated on the lid of the 
piano, with his banjo, another leaning on the 
piano, facing Maltbie, with a most joyous re- 
sponsive face, and two others thumping the 



Seminary Life 43 

time in each other's sides, as they sang 
" Mike Higgins gave a par-r-ty " or some 
rollicking college song, while a bevy of 
merry girls encircled them, his voice reso- 
nant, clear and stirring, his face radiant with 
good cheer, and with the unmistakable 
mark about him of high breeding at perfect 
liberty, too well-born and at ease to think 
about manner, it presented a picture which 
we have delighted to recall again and again, 
and which cannot be effaced. 

Some of the boys had never seen just such 
a Christian before, happy and radiant of soul, 
not despite his being a Christian, but because 
he was one. He was the best pitcher in 
baseball which they had ever seen, " curv- 
ing " the ball with matchless skill, the best 
swimmer, the best singer, one who could get 
music out of any instrument, and the droll- 
est, the most fascinating fellow they had 
ever met. They gained their first deep re- 
ligious convictions then. One of them, who 
was seven miles away, when Sunday came, 



44 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

and Maltbie was to preach, walked the entire 
distance to hear him, and declared that he 
would have walked twice that distance rather 
than to have missed him. Others, boarding 
on the hillsides five, four or three miles 
away, joined him, making quite a procession 
to hear the young minister, and listening to 
him, in that country church, as if for their 
life, and declaring, at the close of the service, 
not only that they had never heard such a 
sermon as that before, but also frankly con- 
fessing that they would like to live more 
Christlike lives. That visit made ineffaceable 
impressions. Persons who have never seen 
him since, have cherished, through all these 
years, the brightest memories of it. Only 
this summer, 1904, a man from Albany who, 
with his family, was there then, and who 
never repeated his visit, asked a mutual 
friend, what had ever become of that re- 
markable young Babcock ; learning only 
then, that it was he, who in the fullness of his 
powers, was the famous preacher of the Brick 



Seminary Life 45 

Church, New York. He had never forgot- 
ten him, and had often wondered through 
the years, into what marked personality he 
had developed. 

He graduated from Auburn Seminary in 
the spring of 1882. 



IV 

LOCKPORT 



For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the 

Lord : and ourselves your servants for Jesus* sake. 

Paul. 



Be strong / 

We are not here to play, to dream, to drift; 
W ? have hard work to do, and loads to lift. 
Shun not the struggle ; face it. 'Tis God's gift. 

— M. D. B. 



IV 



LOCKPORT 
PON his graduation from Auburn 



he was called at once to the First 



Presbyterian Church of Lockport, 
N. Y. It was a church then, as it is now, of 
great importance in Western New York. A 
field which would demand of any young man 
his best, and many feared that he was too 
young to undertake such a responsibility. It 
had been for many years the pulpit throne 
of a very remarkable man, Dr. Wisner. A 
man whose wit and humour, and sympathy, 
whose intellect, evangelical spirit and per- 
sonal power triumphed over an unpromising 
personal appearance, fairly making it, in 
some fascinating way accessory to his wide- 
spread influence and reputation. It was go- 
ing to be hard for a young man, just out of 
the seminary to follow him and his im- 




49 



50 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

mediate and popular successor, Dr. Free- 
man. 

While some feared for the young preacher, 
those who knew him best were convinced 
that he was called of God to the position, 
and would be upheld. His methodical 
habits, his real ability, his unfailing en- 
thusiasm, and his genuine spirituality, all 
were used by the Spirit of God. It was a 
period of great joy. He had perfect health, 
a most interesting and inspiring church, a 
very appreciative people, and the conscious- 
ness of having entered upon the chosen work 
of his life. He magnified his calling. There 
was nothing in the world equal to it. All 
these things combined to fill his cup to over- 
flowing, for that cup was held up to the un- 
failing source of all fullness. He never 
thought of relying upon his physical 
strength, nor his tact, nor his mental re- 
sources to carry him through. He had clear 
definite views of his own insufificiency, and a 
very decided personal reHgious experience. 



Lockport 5 1 



Friendship with Jesus Christ was a great 
reality to him, even then in his early min- 
istry. The poem " Companionship," which 
he wrote later in life, he was working out in 
his first ministry in Lockport. 

No distant Lord have I, 

Loving afar to be. 
Made flesh for me, He cannot rest 

Until He rests in me. 

Brother in joy and pain, 

Bone of my bone was He, 
Now, — intimacy closer still 

He dwells Himself in me. 

I need not journey far 

This dearest friend to see, 
Companionship is always mine. 

He makes His home with me. 

I envy not the twelve, 

Nearer to me is He ; 
The life He once lived here on earth 

He lives again in me. 

Ascended now to God, 

My witness there to be, 
His witness here, am I because 

His spirit dwells in me. 



52 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

0 Glorious Son of God, 
Incarnate Deity, 

1 shall forever be with Thee 
Because Thou art with me. 

He adopted a certain phrase for his rule of 
life, which has become identified with him. 
" Do it now." Whatever it was, nothing 
was to be deferred, to be put off. He de- 
termined to keep ahead of his work. One 
can always tell those who are over rather 
than under their business, ahead and pulling, 
rather than behind and dragged. In supply- 
ing the pulpit in Lockport, before he was 
called, he had preached nearly all the ser- 
mons which he had prepared in the semi- 
nary. After his first Sunday, as pastor, he 
found that he had but two sermons which he 
had not preached there, and he made up his 
mind that he would keep two sermons ahead 
of him, while in that parish, a plan which he 
carried out. No one but a minister can 
quite understand just what that involved in 
the first pastorate. He seemed to come at 



Lockport 53 



once, into the power to hold his work well 
in hand. Like successful merchants, or pro- 
fessional men, who know how to centre all 
the lines of their interests in their office, and 
have them radiate with vitalizing power to 
the farthest reach of those interests, who, no 
matter what the new claims which throng 
upon them, with each new day, are never 
upset nor confused, but always ahead of 
their work : so Maltbie Babcock, from the 
start kept in advance of his work. He never 
seemed harassed nor hurried, and never 
driven. He kept the reins in his own hands. 

He began, at once, systematic visitation, 
as well as systematic study. He had no 
such narrowness as to confine his pastoral 
visits to the poor alone ; as if the rich had 
so much in their wealth, that they needed no 
pastoral care nor oversight. He had no 
such snobbery as to limit his visits to the 
cultured and wealthy. He had a profound 
sympathy for the poor and lonely, for those 
who were " under the wheel." 



54 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

Any one under his care, however plain, 
unattractive or common was an object of his 
affectionate interest, and perhaps, because he 
might be plain, unattractive and common to 
others. To the uncomely parts of his parish 
he paid more abundant honour. He was on 
the alert to see how much could be made 
out of unpromising material. He found it 
most fascinating to note the change wrought 
in such an one, under the influence and 
mastery of Jesus. He neglected no one, 
poor or rich. An incident in his early 
pastoral work comes to my mind. I relate 
it without any hesitation, because it reflects 
very much credit, in the result, on the 
parishioner himself. He was a very well- 
to-do elderly man, in prominent business 
circles ; very reserved, and supposed to be 
inaccessible to religious influences. The 
young pastor sought him out ; for this very 
reason he did not propose to neglect him. 
He went to him, as one in need of redemp- 
tion. With the tact which he possessed by 



Lockport 55 

nature and by grace, he urged him to con- 
sider and yield to the claims which Christ 
had upon him. The proud man was an- 
noyed that he should approach him on this 
subject, and curtly and coldly strove to close 
the interview, as if he were intruding upon 
him. But his pastor with calmness and 
self-possession explained to him that he was 
in the discharge of his holy business, just in 
that act, and firmly though courteously in- 
sisted that he should be so recognized as a 
Christian minister, and not as a boy. The 
offended parishioner was obliged to grant 
this, but he was so thoroughly annoyed and 
irritated that he ceased attending church, 
though his wife and some of the family were 
members of the Church, and not only did 
not withdraw but were entirely in sympathy 
with the earnest young pastor. As months 
passed by, and this prominent man did not 
return to the congregation, there were some 
who thought that it might be wise for the 
young man to own that he had intruded 



56 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

upon him, and to seek to bring him back. 
Mr. Babcock declined to do this, simply be- 
cause it would discredit the work as a Chris- 
tian minister, which he came there to do. 
He had entire faith that God would take 
care of this matter, and that He would bring 
it around all right in time. A half year 
passed away. One Sunday after Mr. Bab- 
cock had returned to the manse from the 
morning service, he saw this man walking up 
and down, nervously, in front of the gate. 
Finally, he opened it, and with rapid step 
pressed to the door, and rang the bell. Mr. 
Babcock answered it himself, and ushered 
him into the privacy of the study. There, 
the troubled man at once apologized for the 
rude way he had treated his pastor, owned 
that he had done what was just right, and 
acknowledged that he, his parishioner, had 
been all wrong, and that he had not had a 
happy day since then. He expressed a de- 
sire to be a Christian, and asked Mr. Bab- 
cock to pray for and with him. Then he 



Lockport 57 

said, after prayer, " I want you to go with 
me to my house, where I wish to have it 
understood that I reinstate you as my 
pastor. I would Hke to have you offer 
prayer there ; and if the way be clear I wish 
to confess my faith in Christ at the next 
communion." I give this case in full, that 
his fidelity in his early ministry and his 
method of dealing with men may be clearly 
illustrated. 

It was while he was in this pastorate that 
he sought and won the hand of Miss Kath- 
arine Tallman, the daughter of Judge Tall- 
man of Poughkeepsie, thus forming a union 
in marriage, singularly close and beautiful, 
and blessed to the end, through the unusual 
combination of joy and sorrow ; and few 
ever suffered more and few ever enjoyed 
more in their united lives. 

His first illness, a very serious case of 
nervous prostration, and his only one until 
the last, the fatal Mediterranean fever, at 
Naples, and separated from that by nearly 



58 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

sixteen years of perfect health intervening, 
was in the third year of this pastorate. 

That illness involved six months of great 
anxiety for his people, his friends and his 
family. Four weeks of that time, just pre- 
vious to his removal to the care of Dr. 
Jackson, he spent at our house, the manse of 
the First Presbyterian Church, Rochester, N. 
Y., where, what Httle I could do for him, in 
direct personal care, seemed peculiarly grate- 
ful to him. It will hardly be thought strange 
that then, we were more closely knit together 
than ever, and that a brooding paternal love, 
always felt for him, deepened and rooted 
through that experience. May this inade- 
quate tribute to his memory be regarded as 
the outgrowth from that root. 

It was a year of great trials. His own 
serious illness, the loss of their Httle child at 
birth, his wife's loss of health, never com- 
pletely restored ; the death of her mother and 
grandmother, two very interesting and beau- 
tiful women, and objects of the tenderest af- 



Lockport 5 9 



fection, all compressed within the limits of 
that year, made it one never to be for- 
gotten. 

In seven months Mr. Babcock was com- 
pletely restored, as the result of the success- 
ful treatment at the Jackson Health Resort, 
Dansville, N. Y. But the trials showed their 
influence, through God's grace, in deepened 
religious life, heightened spirituaHty and in 
broadened affections. Before that time he 
had been indifferent almost, except to his 
very nearest, to the expression of his really 
affectionate nature. In his early life, his 
society and college friends opening their 
hearts to him, as they always did, sometimes 
almost passionately charged him with not 
loving them as they loved him, which is often 
the experience of leaders in college. The 
fact was that he was never willing to be tied 
to any one person, except in his home, where 
his love was complete. He chummed all his 
friends, not one alone. But from that ex- 
perience, he grew rapidly in the power, I may 



6o Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

say purpose to express, in a fine and manly- 
way, most attractive to those whom he loved, 
and who loved him, the great deeps of affec- 
tion in his soul. This was the only time he 
had ever been ill, until the Mediterranean 
fever; so absolutely robust had he ever 
been, so perfect his health, that his friends 
heard with incredulity of his illness. It 
was impossible to associate anything of the 
kind with him. He realized after that, prob- 
ably better than any one else, the necessity 
of taking the most intelligent care of his 
health; for while he seemed fresher, and 
more physically alert than ever, he took the 
greatest pains to keep his body in the 
best possible condition. He was there- 
fore consistent and conscientious in tak- 
ing his vacations, and in making the most of 
them. Those who were permitted to be his 
companions, at such times, recall them as 
among the most charming and delightful out- 
ings of their lives. Music, fishing, sailing, 
driving, private dramatics, droll charades, golf, 



Lockport 6 1 

tennis, unique rollicking entertainments, and 
roaring fun, were all surrounded with and il- 
lumined by an all pervading Christian spirit, 
which made the passage from the greatest 
fun to evening prayers as natural and as un- 
forced as possible. 

It was while he was at Lockport, that he 
came to a clear idea of what his vacations 
should be. He was very fond of the sea. 
But the average seashore hotel had no attrac- 
tions for him. With a few chosen friends, 
he and his wife hired a plain, quiet farm- 
house at Duxbury, near Plymouth, Mass., 
engaging the owner of the house and his 
wife to take care of them. This they held 
for a number of summers, until he bought 
land at Wiano, on the south shore of Cape 
Cod, where he built a very pretty cottage. 
Duxbury was the centre of a unique vaca- 
tion life. There was not a thing connected 
with living on the seashore, which he did not 
master ; that was his way. He could not 
content himself without knowing all that 



62 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

there was to be known of the region, wher- 
ever he was. He could sail a boat as well as 
a skipper. He became a skilled fisherman. 
He learned the habits of the different kinds 
of fish. He became thoroughly familiar 
with the history of that region. The salient 
points of character in the fisherman of Mas- 
sachusetts Bay, and of Cape Cod he thor- 
oughly appreciated and enjoyed ; he was hail 
fellow with them all. He and those with 
him, regularly attended and contributed to 
the little church. He did not take his parish 
cares with him, but he was as intensely and 
as joyously a Christian, in all his summer 
outings as at home. And at night after 
games and frolics, that flashed and scintillated 
with wit that cannot be recalled now, so 
subtle and constant, the evening prayers, 
reverent and tender, more unique even than 
those of Robert Stevenson — pulsating with 
the joy of Hfe, were something never to be 
forgotten. 

It was in these vacations that he gave 



Lockport 63 



loose rein to his dramatic talent. No one 
could listen to his preaching, with his uncon- 
ventional way of stating truth, without notic- 
ing that vivid dramatic gift of his, all uncon- 
sciously used. But in his vacation, sur- 
rounded by trusted friends, he gave free play 
to this native talent in charades, and humor- 
ous recitations, and the telling of dialect 
stories in an inimitable way. There is a 
photograph which caught him and his party 
in the droll representation of various kinds 
of invalids, with him as the country doctor. 
He is not, in that picture, Maltbie Babcock, 
at all. He is the other man ; he is merged 
wholly into the character of the absorbed, 
kind, and faithful country practitioner. He 
is dear old " Weelum McClure," save that 
Ian Maclaren's delightful creation of that 
character came afterwards. He never at- 
tempted the type of minister which Dickens 
so caustically delineated — if the reality ever 
existed, for he loathed it, and turned away 
from it, to the representation of those carica- 



64 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

tures among the Germans, Irishmen, French- 
men, or backwoodsman, which, while most 
amusing, presented inherent, sturdy, manly- 
qualities. When he went back to the " Pat " 
of his early farm experience, he was no 
longer the Hthe, graceful, beaming faced 
Maltbie Babcock ; he was instead, in face, 
figure and tone of voice Pat, just Pat. At 
the right time and in the right place he 
dearly loved a good story ; and many a time, 
my first greeting on entering his house, was 
his ringing cheery voice from the hall above, 
" Uncle Charhe, I have a new story for you." 
In one sense, it was this dramatic power that 
made him such an excellent musician, or 
artist, or shoemaker, or carpenter, fisherman 
or sailor, whatever he undertook. 

In later years, while at Baltimore, he was 
accustomed, after the hard strain of the win- 
ter's work, and before the pressing demands 
which the month of June always makes upon 
the city pastor, to go to Florida, for two 
weeks of tarpon fishing, a great fish to be 



Lockport 65 

found only in those southern waters, hard 
to catch, and very gamy. To haul one in, 
and safely land him, required the utmost 
skill, patience and strength. The effort, after 
hooking him, is full of excitement, and suc- 
cess arouses the greatest enthusiasm. Dr. 
Babcock became a successful and noted tar- 
pon fisher. He was while there, a tarpon 
fisherman ; on his boat everything in plan, 
talk and work turned towards tarpon. He 
was dressed for his calling. One would not 
dream, who did not know him elsewhere, 
that he was the thorough musician, the 
charming man of society, the platform de- 
fender of great causes, the distinguished 
preacher of Baltimore. He was bound to 
catch that tarpon ; he studied his ways ; he 
learned his moods ; he took advantage of 
his tricks and landed him ! The fishermen 
of Florida bays and inlets never forgot him, 
and constantly quoted him. 

In his study at Baltimore, there hung 
upon the walls, a half of a huge tarpon, cut 



66 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

lengthwise, properly prepared and mounted 
on a cedar slab, a trophy of one day's suc- 
cessful fishing, its silver scales as brilliant as 
if burnished metal. If his letters to the 
Baltimore papers on this sport, and describ- 
ing his " catches," and the general experi- 
ence of fishing in Southern waters could be 
gathered and published, they would form a 
volume which would be well-nigh as popular 
as anything of his now printed. 

It was in this way that he took his first 
tour abroad, accompanied by his devoted 
wife and a few intimate friends. It was a 
golden summer of delight wherever they 
went. His letters written en route to his 
people in Baltimore and printed in their 
church paper. The Brown Memorial Monthly ^ 
reflect his discernment, his mental grasp, his 
felicity of expression, his understanding of 
the heart of things, and his ever present con- 
sciousness of the heavenly horizon to such 
a degree, that it is to be hoped that they 
too, like his last letters from abroad while 



Lockport 67 

with the Auburn Seminary party, to his Men's 
society of the Brick Church, New York, may 
be put in permanent Hterary form. They 
deserve such preservation. He had an in- 
satiable desire to get to the core of every- 
thing. On shipboard, he went everywhere. 
Any suffering passenger, in second cabin or 
steerage, he helped and comforted. He got 
acquainted with the engineers, even the 
stokers looked for his coming with an ap- 
preciative smile. It was this same dramatic 
or imitative talent of his that enabled him to 
make the most of his German and French. 
What little he had of those languages was 
through the college instruction in modern 
languages of years ago ; and college French 
and German does not take one very far into 
the intricacies of conversation. But he util- 
ized his few phrases and idioms, to an aston- 
ishing degree ; a word, a phrase with a shrug 
of the shoulders, a characteristic turn of the 
head, seemed to take him a good way, in 
making him understood, to the homesick sec- 



68 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

ond cabin or steerage passenger, who looked 
for his coming with longing, and hailed him 
with delight. It was in the same way that 
he went through the Steel Mills, and into 
the coal mines, when visiting us in Scranton. 
One of the young, skilled officials of the 
Steel Mills conducted him through, and said, 
afterwards, that he took in the whole system 
with remarkable celerity and comprehension 
of mechanic law, and put himself in friend- 
liest accord with the men. The next day he 
invited a member of my family to go with 
him through the mills, and explained the 
whole process as clearly as if he had been to 
the manner born, while in every shop the 
men greeted him as an old friend, so quickly 
had he the day before established a basis of 
comradeship with them. 

It was the experiences of that third year 
in his first pastorate, which caused his people 
of Lockport, who appreciated and loved him 
more than ever to see that it would not be 
wise to insist upon his remaining there. 



Lockport 69 

They agreed with all his other friends that 
the call which came from the Brown Me- 
morial Church of Baltimore, Md., in 1887 
was of the Lord's directing. 



V 

BALTIMORE 



/ press towards the mark for the prize of the high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus.^^ — Paul. 



0 Lord I pray 
That for this day 

1 may not swerve 
By foot or hand 
From Thy command. 

Not to be servedy but to serve. 

This too I pray 
That for this day 
No love of ease 
Nor pride prevent 
My good intent 
Not to be pleased, but to please. 

And if I may 
V d have this day 
Strength from above 
To set my heart 
In heavenly art 
Not to be lovedy but to love. 

— M. D. B. 



I 



V 



BALTIMORE 
OW in the second parish, with 



the results of his systematic and 



^ thorough study, with deep expe- 
rience in sorrow, with his rapidly developing 
gifts, and greatly increased powers, he en- 
tered at once upon a career of usefulness and 
influence through fourteen years of service, 
in every way remarkable. 

Here his poetical gift was awakened. He 
had read largely in the seminary, and in his 
first parish, in the best poetry. He specially 
delighted at this period in Wordsworth, later 
he was devoted to Tennyson, and during the 
long horseback rides of his journey in the 
Holy Land, just before the end, he learned 
" In Memoriam " by heart. Nearly all his 
poems, which are in the Memorial volume, 
" Thoughts for every-day living," were 




73 



74 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

written in Baltimore. Here also he put 
forth his first musical compositions, which 
attracted marked attention, and were re- 
garded, under the circumstances, as quite 
wonderful. A year and a half after his 
death, the organist of the Brick Church, 
New York, who had followed Dr. Babcock 
from Baltimore, gave an organ recital to the 
special musical friends of Dr. Babcock, in 
which only his compositions were played. 
Here, in this parish was more clearly re- 
vealed than ever before, his power over 
young men. It was a power indeed, a pas- 
sion with him which fairly dominated him. 
The Johns Hopkins University afforded 
him a great field for the exercise of this 
power. A room was set apart for his use. 
Special hours were appointed for his recep- 
tion of students. It became, in a good 
sense, Hke a confessional. It was the 
waking of many men to a new life. They 
flocked about him, they followed him. He 
visited The Hill School at Pottstown every 



Baltimore 75 

other month, Robert Speer going the 
alternate months. The opportunity there 
afforded him for preaching and influencing 
boys, at the most impressionable age, was 
greatly appreciated by him, and responded 
to by them. Hundreds of them were lifted 
up to nobler ideals and nearer the Christ, by 
him. He went again and again to Yale, 
Princeton, and Harvard for similar service. 
All this will be more fully described in the 
chapter on " His Work in Schools and 
Colleges." 

There was developed within him, while in 
Baltimore a more intense desire than ever to 
save men. He seemed to feel to the full the 
immensely strong figure of Jude's " Others 
save with fear — pulHng them out of the fire, 
hating even the garment spotted by the 
flesh." No firemen of to-day, trained to 
daring feats, to save his fellow men from the 
flames, in most dangerous places, ever felt 
more the exhilaration, in the supreme mo- 
ment of rescue, than this man, on fire with a 



76 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

holy passion to deliver souls. He showed 
peculiar aptitude for personal work with 
men. While, I think, he never had an 
evangelist in his own church, it was not 
because he doubted the efficiency of good 
ones, for he had great sympathy with, and 
admiration for Mr. Moody ; but because he 
did not need them. His church was always 
in a quickened condition. Although he had 
his own clearly chosen methods of work, he 
never claimed that they were the only ones. 
He rejoiced in the success of those who 
worked on different lines from his own. All 
modes of reaching men, such as Salvation 
Army work, Rescue Missions, Young Men's 
Christian Associations, or Young Women's, 
and Christian Endeavour Societies enlisted 
his hearty sympathy. He was a very popu- 
lar delegate to great Christian Endeavour 
Conventions. His presence, specially at 
Cleveland, and at London, England, where 
he went simply to be a delegate, made a 
deep impression. There are those who can 



Baltimore 77 

never forget their association with him at 
such times, particularly on the steamer, on 
the way to the World's London Convention. 
There never was any Union movement in 
Baltimore for the deepening and broadening 
of the religious life, and the increase of its 
effectiveness, in which he was not one of 
the inspiring leaders. A unique Christian 
worker, Mr. Todd Hall, the Baltimore 
detective, was once in Scranton addressing 
the Young Men's Christian Association, on 
a Sunday afternoon, at the Lyceum Theatre. 
When it was announced that Dr. Babcock 
would address them, on the next Sabbath, 
Mr. Hall, moved irresistibly, cried out, " Oh, 
I say, fellows, he's a daisy." He became 
one of the most prominent religious leaders 
in all that region. He was looked upon as 
a special feature of Baltimore. The entire 
city, of all denominations and associations 
held him with mingled pride and love. The 
Rev. Henry W. Luce, from my charge in 
Scranton, and now for a number of years 



78 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

supported by that church as a missionary in 
the Shantung Province, China, wrote of Dr. 
Babcock recently — " I was so interested in 
the book of his letters from Palestine to the 
Men's Association of the Brick Church, that 
I could hardly lay it down until I finished it — 
you may remember that you once gave me 
a letter of introduction to him. I found him 
at his home in Baltimore. I think that I 
never spent a few hours in any one's pres- 
ence, whose influence left such a clear and 
abiding impression upon me. The music, 
the conversation, and above all the spirit of 
the man still abide in my heart. I sat down 
at his desk and the • Do it now ' motto, which 
he had written and pasted on the rim of his 
desk cover, has often been a reminder to 
promptness. And above all, was his frank- 
ness, and his power to make you feel it. So 
God blesses the earth with His children." 

He had no one method of reaching people, 
but perhaps no one ever used his pen more 
effectively than he, for this purpose. He 



Baltimore 79 

wrote many letters daily to different mem- 
bers of his parish, about their spiritual needs, 
but in no stereotyped manner. Each note 
was sui generis, pervaded with his strong, 
cheery religious life, and marked by his easy, 
attractive style. There was not a member of 
his congregation, but what was aware of his 
personal interest in him, and affected by it. 
As a result of this faithful work, there were 
constant additions to his church. After his 
death it was wonderful, except to those who 
knew his real life, to find how many people 
whom society, so called, and the great world 
knew not, held him as their dearest friend. 
As Ian Maclaren refers to the other persons, 
than the twelve " who emerge like pictures 
from the shadow in the gallery, like unad- 
dressed letters in a biography, like initials in 
a diary — they are persons of whom we only 
get glimpses, or whose acquaintance with 
Jesus is barely mentioned. There is this un- 
known, whom we can only call * the goodman 
of the house,' who rivalled Joseph of Ari- 



8o Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

mathea in the offices of friendship — affording 
Him his choicest room wherein to keep the 
feast." So men and women in the humblest 
ranks of life, had cherished notes from Dr. 
Babcock, brief, but characteristic and vitaliz- 
ing, which in his delicate thoughtfulness he 
had sent them ; or they recalled memorable 
visits, or some spoken word, which will never 
be forgotten. He would have scorned to 
make these expressions of interest and of con- 
sideration, to the favoured few alone. As the 
sun gives to each blade of grass all it can hold 
of his light and heat and life, as if it were the 
only blade of grass, so he had the charming 
way of giving to every one he met, rich or 
poor, learned or unlearned, something of his 
very self, and at the time, the very best of 
himself. While a man of reserves, and in 
another sense of reserve, he never held back 
the best or most brilliant thought that came 
to him, in conversation, as if it were too good 
or too valuable for the time, and only to be 
used for some great occasion. If some spe- 



Baltimore 



8i 



cially select circle were having him at dinner, 
with a choice " bill of company," as well as 
of fare, or gifted friends had secured him for 
some long planned outing, or for some charm- 
ing drive, and supposed that they were get- 
ting what was denied ordinary mortals, they 
were greatly mistaken. He knew where and 
when that little club of working girls, in his 
congregation, took their lunch, or where 
those struggling college boys were boarding 
themselves, or where those clerks were in 
their small and cheerless hall bedrooms of 
dreary boarding-houses, and he would drop 
in on them, with a way and manner as at- 
tractive as when with those who held them- 
selves as forming the choicest circles of the 
city, and which they can never forget. He 
was the ideal friend of the young man. One 
of his Baltimore " boys," William Forman 
Clarke, paid a tribute to his memory which 
shows how the young men of his parish came 
to regard him. 

" How great and powerful in the sight of 



82 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

God must be the man, who during so short 
a period of life on this planet can do so much 
good. And he above all others was a man ! 
His laugh, his gesture, his music, his preach- 
ing, all sent a warm flow through your body 
and soul. He was but a man, and yet such 
a man ! Where shall we find one such as 
he." Like the fabled man of the bedia- 
monded coat, which dropped jewels wherever 
he walked, Maltbie Babcock gave his best at 
each time, frankly, freely, joyously. This 
was one of the sources of his power as a 
pastor. He was truly, and not professionally, 
a friend of every one in his parish. Very 
few men of his age could write to men over 
seventy, as he wrote to one who had retired 
from active life, to the quiet of his last illness. 
I quote from a letter in the ** Thoughts for 
Every-day Living." " It is a comfort to look 
back and think what good friends we have 
been, and then to make a jump into the fu- 
ture, and know that there, the real summer 
season of friendship comes. I hope that you 



Baltimore 83 

are fairly comfortable, though I hardly dare 
to, for it is no joke letting go of our tools as 
they wear out. But you are God's workman, 
and some fine day, He will give you a new 
kit, and set you at tasks, in which, and of 
which you will never weary. I love to think 
of our unchanged friendship, and that though 
we may not be cronies on the back piazza, or 
in the garden much more, if any more in this 
world, we shall be in Paradise, which after 
all, is God's garden — with no serpent." To 
another, whose little child had died he sent 
a most comforting letter, in which were these 
words : " Always think of me as your friend, 
and take advantage of my friendship ; what 
are we here for, but to love and help one 
another?" He thought and felt far into the 
heart of things. He had sacred intuitions of 
sorrow. A parishioner, receiving such words 
as these, would cherish them forever. " Per- 
haps the richest of God's earthly gifts is an 
accepted sorrow. Do not lose this one. 
Accept it. Say, * Speak, Lord, for Thy serv- 



84 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

ant heareth,' and He will tell you some things 
worth all it cost to hear them. I cannot say 
what, but you wall know." 

Here, in Baltimore, there came to him, 
also, a deeper and more unique spiritual life, 
giving to his humour, his table-talk, his rec- 
reations, his prayers and his preaching an 
indescribable power. He knew where the 
sources of spiritual Hfe were, and daily re- 
sorted to them. He slept soundly through 
the night, like one who made a business of it, 
and as if to lie awake was a neglect of a God- 
given opportunity to " knit up the ravelled 
sleeve of care." But he did not waste the 
morning hours. The hour before breakfast, 
after his toilet, was his special hour to be 
alone with God and His word ; not for study, 
that he took up later in the morning, but for 
worship, for communion and for intercessory 
prayer for his large congregation, and for 
special cases that lay on his great sympathetic 
heart. It was here, through this direct per- 
sonal contact with the heart of God that he 



Baltimore 85 

became charged for the day, to give off, as 
he did constantly and joyously, the fullness 
of God, which his Heavenly Father imparted 
to him so freely. 

Perhaps he evinced his gifts as clearly as 
anywhere in his table-talk or conversation. 
He would press on daringly, eagerly into 
some dark subject, his thought rushing out 
into the darkness like a rocket, and then sud- 
denly bursting into corruscations, explosions, 
hke the supreme moment of the rocket's 
sweep, lighting up the darkness, and filling 
his companions with wonder at his bold and 
brilliant flights of fancy. And yet those 
who were nearest to him and who saw the 
most of him felt, I think, that nowhere did 
the depth, breadth and power of his nature 
so reveal itself as in prayer. His prayers 
were never the same. In one way they were 
like the chameleon which takes its colour from 
what it feeds on. They reflected the en- 
vironment, and gave voice to the feeling and 
spirit of the moment, wherever he was. 



86 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

Whoever followed him then, whether friends 
at the family altar, or the great congregation, 
felt as if they were brought into the presence 
of the Almighty, and near to the heart of 
God. 

Church after church essayed to draw him 
away from Baltimore. Two churches in 
Philadelphia, three in New York, one in 
Washington, two in Chicago, and others 
wanted him, but for all those glad, fruitful 
years, he remained at his post, apparently im- 
movable. He sought no change. He was 
as far as possible from putting himself in the 
way of calls. He tried to avoid them. 

No one was happier, or merrier than he. 
No one drew more delight from song of bird, 
colours in nature and pencillings of leafless 
trees against the sky than he. 

" Now behold the Master's drawing 
Clear against the cold, gray sky; 
Not a trace of warmth or colour, 
But fine feasting for the eye." 

Ail the phenomena of natural life minis- 



The Park Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, Md., was 
the fruit of a most successful mission of the Brown Me- 
morial Church under the ministry of Dr. Babcock. 

On the death of Dr. Babcock its name was changed to 
''The Babcock Memorial Church." Its Church edifice 
was erected by the devoted friends of Dr. Babcock in the 
Brown Memorial and Babcock Memorial Church at the 
cost of about $60,000 and dedicated Dec 1, 1903. 



Baltimore 87 

tered to his joy. And no man enjoyed men, 
best of all to him, more than he. After his 
death, Robert Speer, in an article in the June 
number of the Record of Christian Work of 
that year, paid a most exquisite and appre- 
ciative tribute to these, as well as to other 
qualities of his rare nature. 

His music was a wide, deep channel 
through which he poured the strong emotions 
of his soul. Seated at his organ, with his 
wife at the piano, or the reverse, he revelled 
in the grandest compositions of the great 
masters. 

No commonplace music found recognition 
there. He was familiar with the best, the 
noblest harmonies. Through these, or 
through his own delightful improvisations, 
he would literally " Pour out his soul within 
him." It was unquestionably one of his 
modes of worship. His profile at such times 
bore an expression of aspiration peculiarly 
impressive. 



VI 



HIS WORK IN SCHOOLS AND 
COLLEGES 



Go 

Right 
On 

Working, 

— M. D. B. 

// is not growiftg like a tree 

In bulky doth make man better be ; 

Or standing long an oaky three hundred ^ear. 

To fall a log at last, dry, baldy and sere : 

A lily of a day 

Is fairer far in May, 
Although it fall and die that night — 
// was the plant and flower of Light. 
In small proportions we just beauties see ; 
And in short measures life may perfect be. 

B. JONSON. 



VI 



HIS WORK IN SCHOOLS AND 
COLLEGES 

4 SKETCH is not necessarily a fr 



ment, or a part of an object. It 



^ "^should aim to present an entire out- 
line. Imagination delights to fill in the 
details. Imperfect as this sketch must neces- 
sarily be, it would be still more so if there 
were no reference to Dr. Babcock's work 
with the students in school and college. 

University preachers are comparatively 
new features in academic life, and have 
come to be important factors in it. To the 
work of the University chaplain were added 
the visits of lay speakers and preachers dis- 
tinguished for their special gifts in influenc- 
ing young men. 

The Hill School at Pottstown, The Hotch- 
kiss School at Lakeville, Conn., and Harvard, 




92 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

Yale and Princeton Universities, among other 
institutions of learning, have been quick to 
appreciate and to take advantage of this new 
movement to bring the ablest and most con- 
secrated Christian preachers and lay speakers 
in contact with their students. In this way 
hundreds, not to say thousands of young 
men have been awakened to the life in 
Christ. It was impossible that Dr. Babcock 
should be left out of such work. By " na- 
ture and nurture" he was peculiarly fitted 
for it. He was not only the boy's and the 
young man's man, but hero; and few men 
ever influenced their lives so forcefully and 
fruitfully as he. 

This sketch of him cannot therefore leave 
out this important department of his activity 
as a Christian worker. But as this was on 
fields where I had not walked with him, and 
desiring to secure some testimonies at first 
hand, I have written to The Hill School at 
Pottstown, Pa., and to Harvard and Yale 
Universities for some direct impressions of 



Schools and Colleges 93 

his work there. The long summer vacation, 
and the consequent absence from the univer- 
sities of those to whom I appHed, have pre- 
cluded anything but brief descriptions from 
that source. The Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, 
of Yale, wrote : " I remember very plainly 
Dr. Babcock's last sermon in the college 
chapel here. It was on ' power.* He traced 
the use of the word through the New Testa- 
ment, and the sermon was certainly a very 
strong one. I happen to call to mind two 
remarks which I overheard as I passed out 
of the chapei. One student said, ' That was 
the greatest sermon I ever heard.' The 
other replied, * Yes, and would he not make 
a great actor?' Both were impressed with 
the power of the man, and one called at- 
tention to a certain dramatic element in 
his preaching. It is beyond question that 
Dr. Babcock was considered by the students 
one of the most virile, direct and helpful of 
the Yale preachers. He was also specially 
approachable by the men, and he always 



94 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

was glad to avail himself of any opportunity 
for personal interviews with them." 

The Rev. Dr. Francis G. Peabody, of Har- 
vard, wrote : " You ask me for some remi- 
niscence of the impression made by Dr. Bab- 
cock through his preaching to students of 
Harvard University. Under the system of 
religious administration at Harvard, Sunday 
evening worship is led by ministers of the 
various communions and from all parts of 
the country, so that those who are regular 
attendants are likely to hear the most com- 
manding voices of the American pulpit. 
Dr. Babcock, in his short career, preached 
twice in our chapel ; and the response to his 
message on the part of our young men was 
almost without precedent or parallel. I shall 
never forget the throng of youths who 
crowded towards him at the end of each 
service to express their gratitude. His accu- 
rate understanding of the habit of mind pre- 
vailing among educated youth, his entire 
freedom from professionalism of manner and 



Schools and Colleges 95 

material, his personal vigour and charm, all 
combined to make him singularly winning ; 
and he seemed to me the ideal of what a 
preacher to young men should be. I re- 
member also, as a part of the same impres- 
sion, his own expressions, in both instances, 
of the peculiar joy he had in this college 
preaching, and the sense of unconstrained 
contact with young minds. He was a most 
unusual combination of the boyish and the 
mature, the spontaneous and the reflective, 
the jubilant and the sympathetic ; and these 
varying moods penetrated his sermons and 
gave them a peculiar appeal to the tidal 
life of youth. Many young men who thus 
listened to him at our university will, I be- 
lieve, date not only their keenest impressions 
of religious truth but their confidence of the 
reality and simplicity of religion from the 
Sunday evenings with him in Appleton 
chapel." 

Dr. John Meigs, principal of The Hill 
School, Pottstown, Pa., where Dr. Babcock 



96 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

went on alternate months with Robert E. 
Speer, for several years, gave me the follow- 
ing exceedingly interesting account of his 
work in that institution : " Of no man can 
Paul's words, • All things to all men,' be more 
aptly used than of Maltbie Babcock. It was 
true of him by reason of the force of his 
own nature, but more true because of that 
law which he himself characterized as ' Nature 
plus Nurture.* It was profoundly true be- 
cause of the diversity and richness of his 
gifts, which betrayed the lover of Nature, 
' the living garment of God,' and of all forms 
of physical activity, as well as the poet, musi- 
cian and artist. He was all these by nature ; 
but how much more by nurture ! 

" These gifts were combined in a radiant, 
magnetic personality that defies analysis. 
His employment of his rare powers seems 
even more marvellous than their possession. 

" Self-effacement, that the face of Christ 
might more truly appear in his life, was the 
law of his service. Necessarily conscious of 



Schools and Colleges 97 

power, to him it was the power of God work- 
ing in and through him ; dehghting in the 
exercise of his gifts, he seemed ahve only to 
the sense of the goodness of God who made 
him a servant for Jesus' sake. And yet, con- 
tradictory as it may appear, the kindhng, 
quickening radiancy and joyousness of his 
speech and countenance might easily have 
suggested, to those who knew him not, the 
very < abandon ' of self-confidence, while 
those who really knew his soul found ever 
in this only the irrepressible joy of one who 
knew in whom he had believed, and was, 
therefore, confident. 

" In no field of work did he make more 
distinctive use of his many and varied gifts 
than in his intercourse with boys and young 
men. His intense vitality and enthusiasm 
kept him ever young. His power of imagi- 
nation instantly grasped their point of view 
and enabled him to put himself in their 
places ; to think their thoughts after them ; 
to enjoy their sports, to feel their struggles, 



98 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

to know their temptations. There was no 
professional * tang ' about him ; no peculi- 
arity of manner or idiosyncrasy of personality 
to baffle or repel, but, from the first instant 
of meeting, there was everything in manner 
and form and speech to attract and charm 
the young. Boys forgot their shyness and 
reticence before this minister of grace, whose 
habits indicated the man, whose habiliments 
revealed the gentleman, and, instinctively, 
gave him the freedom of the city, of their 
hearts and minds. 

" He sometimes visited schools and preached 
to the boys who, from year to year, eagerly 
looked for his return. We can see him 
seated, for the first time, at a table with a 
group of young fellows. Expecting to see 
a typical clergyman they look at him critic- 
ally and find nothing characteristic of ' the 
cloth.' He opens conversation with some 
casual, friendly remark, and in the common 
courtesies of the table indulges in pleasant- 
ries, tells an interesting story, makes them 



Schools and Colleges 99 

forget themselves, and has them spellbound 
before five minutes have passed. One story- 
after another is told, each one more interest- 
ing than the last, until the boys at other 
tables look around to observe*and share the 
merriment. But it is not all fun. As nat- 
urally and spontaneously as he has narrated 
the amusing anecdote does he glide into the 
recital of some strong, stirring incident of 
human life (alluding, perhaps, to its Christ- 
ward side), as one might speak of an event 
of moment to any other dear, intimate friend. 
The young boy feels no self-consciousness, 
no embarrassment, no recoil, as if he were 
being forced into the courts of heaven ' vi et 
armis,' but tingles with glad surprise to find 
new and obvious connection between human 
and divine life. 

" Once, in giving an account of his expe- 
rience with a black leopard in the Jardin des 
Plantes in Paris, and of how nearly he lost 
his arm by his impulsive kindness in feeding 
the dangerous brute, he described the treat- 



loo Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

ment he underwent at the surgeon's hands. 
As he showed the scar on his hand where 
the leopard's claw had caught him, he swiftly 
turned the conversation from the exciting 
channel of adventure into the serious one of 
application, and, in effect, preached a little 
sermon to those boys that will long be re- 
membered by his hearers. He was like his 
Master, who ever preached from the common 
events of life, and took the flower in the field, 
the bird in the air, the cloud in the sky, the 
seed in the ground for His texts. 

" On the occasion of his first visit to the 
school he arrived in time for evening prayers, 
Saturday night. After the brief service he 
stood for almost an hour before the boys 
and told them of a recent fishing trip for 
tarpon. As interesting as his vivid portrayal 
of his exciting experience in landing the fish 
was the sight of those boys Hstening with 
eager faces, some with open mouths, to that 
wonderful narrator. With what power and 
dramatic art he told that story ! Those who 



Schools and Colleges loi 

listened felt as if they too were struggling 
with the great fish, as with the perfect imita- 
tion of a man with the rod in his hand he 
described how he played with it. One saw 
by the intense expression of his face that he 
was living over the experience again in im- 
agination ; and, as he narrated it, he por- 
trayed the whole scene before his audience. 
As he moved from side to side, one could see 
the fellows involuntarily move, too. They 
would not lose sight of a gesture or an ex- 
pression of his mobile countenance. Was it 
any wonder that a man so in touch with 
the things most dear to boys' hearts should, 
on the following morning, hold them in the 
hollow of his hand, as he preached to them 
on the great theme of ' Overcoming ' ? He 
baited their attention, drew them to him, 
and, literally, fished for them as he had for 
the tarpon, and caught them as he had 
the fish, — always supremely and tirelessly a 
* fisher of men.' 

" One of the secrets of his power in preach- 



I02 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

ing to boys and young men was that very 
dramatic instinct which made him, all un- 
consciously to himself, portray, by gesture 
and expression as well as word, the thoughts 
of his mind. Once in preaching of the two 
men in the Bible, one of whom said ' I go ' 
but went not, and the other of whom said 
* I go not ' but went, he gave, as a picture of 
the man who was quick and ready with his 
words, the formal salutation. Putting his 
heels together and straightening himself up, 
he said in quick military fashion, as he saluted 
with his hands to his forehead, * Aye, aye, 
sir,' and then went on to describe the boy 
always quick to assent but impotent to do. 

" Maltbie Babcock used his singular gift 
of word-painting and dramatic recital to reach 
the naive mind of youth, who understand the 
concrete but are often repelled by the ab- 
stract. Always assuming, or assuring them 
of the sonship of his youthful hearers to the 
Father, he never preached in theological or 
doctrinal terms. His theme was Hfe, and 



Schools and Colleges 103 

life controlled and guided by Jesus Christ as 
the only life worth living. He made straight- 
forward appeals to the hardihood and man- 
hood of young men. He made them feel 
the glory of strife and struggle, the impo- 
tence and ugliness of sin, and the misery of 
an invertebrate life and character. His was 
the red-blooded, robust gospel, the over- 
coming and conquering life. * It made brutes 
men, and men divine.' 

" Two weeks before sailing on his own 
last voyage he preached in the school from 
the text * There go the ships.' His words 
bore largely upon three lines of thought — 
the port, the cargo, and the pilot. Who 
that heard him that night will ever forget 
his description of each man standing at the 
wheel of his life, of the different pilots of 
ambition and lust, selfishness and dishonesty, 
cowardice and hypocrisy, who came up to 
ask for a turn at the wheel, and his earnest 
appeal to those young lads, just starting out 
upon the voyage of life, to let Jesus Christ, 



I04 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

the true pilot, the only one who knows each 
rock and reef and peril of the voyage, take 
the wheel of their lives. 

" He did not yield to the temptation to 
preach only to the multitude, ignoring the 
individual. He was as willing to take time 
to listen, in private, to the recital of his 
temptations by some weak, wayward boy, or 
of his intellectual difficulties by some thought- 
ful and sincere lad, as he was to walk the 
streets of the great city with some despairing 
man in the last throes of a struggle for self- 
mastery, past midnight and on into the early 
morning hours of dawning Hght and triumph. 

" Great as was his power as a preacher, 
greater was his influence as a friend in mould- 
ing the lives and characters of the youths who 
knew him, by reason of his own elevated and 
consistent practice. His standards of con- 
duct for himself were most rigorous, his 
generosity and charity to others were well 
nigh boundless. Not a few great preachers, 
seen under the searchlight of daily inter- 



Schools and Colleges 105 

course, lessen or lose their influence because 
of reservations and discrepancies between 
dictum and deed. Not so with Maltbie 
Babcock. While he won his young hearers 
by his gifts and ideal personality, and held 
them with his strong and direct preaching, 
he fashioned and formed them through his 
noble and flawless daily life." 

" Keep but God's model safe — 
New men will rise to take its mould." 

This chapter would not be complete with- 
out this contribution from Mr. Robert E. 
Speer, who not only knew Dr. Babcock very 
well, but is himself also one of the foremost 
of successful workers among boys and young 
men in schools and colleges. 

" I think Dr. Babcock died on the thresh- 
old of his work for young men, especially 
for students. From his pastorate in Balti- 
more, aside from his remarkable work in 
Johns Hopkins University, he had gone out 
a little to the colleges and universities ; but 



io6 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

he was just coming into a larger activity in 
this sphere from his pastorate in New York 
when he passed on. And yet he had aheady 
done a great deal. In half a dozen colleges 
and schools he was known and loved, and 
his visits were looked for with eager expec- 
tation. In some of these, his first visits had 
swept all barriers away, and given him a 
place of fullest admiration and regard in the 
hearts of the young men. In one, at least, 
his unconventional, fresh style was a little 
startHng, but on his second visit, he won his 
way, and was voted by the graduating class 
that year, either the most popular, or next 
to the most popular preacher of the year. 
But such words do not describe his place and 
spirit. It was not popular that he sought to 
be, but spiritually helpful and creative. And 
young men felt this, and reahzed that they 
were hearing a man who lived the high and 
radiant life, and longed to win them to it. 
The same qualities which gave him power 
with other classes, gave him power with 



Schools and Colleges 107 

young men. The genial, leaping joy; the 
hopeful, confident note of moral victory ; the 
piquancy and intellectual zest of his way of 
putting things ; the warmth and reality of 
his own acquaintance with the Saviour ; the 
nobility and unflinching fidelity of his prin- 
ciples and ideals ; the ability to relate the 
truth and power of the gospel to the com- 
mon temptations and ordinary life of young 
men — these were only a few of the charac- 
teristics that made him simply fascinating to 
many young men. He knew their hearts, 
and he was bent upon winning them to the 
pure and Christlike Hfe. One of his ser- 
mons which had a never failing charm for 
young men was on ' Overcoming.' This 
message of positive strength and good cheer, 
beyond all clouding, awoke in young men 
and boys those ' intimations of immortality ' 
which it takes much sin to slay, and the 
hght came back upon the skies of life again. 
And his own rich hfe assured young men 
that the highest life is the widest and fullest. 



io8 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

He could talk to them of any subject they 
chose. He could tell them of music, of art, 
of tarpon fishing, of poetry, of politics, and 
most of all, and this was the subject he 
chose, of Christ. Of course he had his own 
church work to do, and he reached multi- 
tudes of young men there ; but even larger 
doors were opening before him among the 
thousands of students of our land; and he 
was but beginning a great work here, where 
the field is whitest to the harvest, and the 
grain to be gathered of value unsurpassed. 
There is no other class which puts reality 
to as severe a test. That he met their test- 
ing, and commended himself to them as gold 
was but one of the many evidences that, 
with him, the Refiner's work was done, and 
he could pass on." 



VII 
NEW YORK 



Whose eye foresaw this w.. ? 

Not mine. 
Whose hand marked out this 

Not mine. 

A clearer eye than miney 
'Twas Thine. 

A wiser hand than mine, 
' Twas Thine ! 

Then let my hand be still 

In Thine, 
And let me find my will 

In Thine ! 



From a portrait taken November, 1809, 



VII 



NEW YORK 




HEN his call from the Brick 
Church, New York, came, so 
brought that even his own people 



at Baltimore, at last, most reluctantly con- 
fessed that the directing hand of Providence 
was apparent in it, he sought the counsel of 
several friends, and kept the matter open be- 
fore God. The entire city of Baltimore was 
stirred with a strong desire to retain him. 
Committees from the faculty of the Johns 
Hopkins University and from the students, 
from the Ministers' Union and from many 
churches, and from various boards in the city 
waited on him, beseeching him to decline the 
call. The prominent citizens of every pro- 
fession, and of every creed, and almost every 
race, strongly urged him to stay with them. 



Ill 



1 1 2 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

But when he became convinced that he was 
being led, they finally yielded, virtually say- 
ing, " The will of the Lord be done." 

At the time that the committee of the 
Brick Church prosecuted the call, and went 
to Baltimore to meet Dr. Babcock and the 
session of the Brown Memorial Church, and 
pressed the claims of the great needs of New 
York City, Dr. van Dyke accompanied 
them. It was a memorable meeting. Dr. 
van Dyke afterwards said, that while he 
never had had any reason to doubt the love 
of his people for him, he had never known 
any minister loved as Dr. Babcock was 
loved by that people. The session broke 
down and sobbed. Dr. Babcock was com- 
pletely melted. Dr. van Dyke was deeply 
moved. The chairman of the committee of 
the Brick Church said afterwards that he 
would not wish to be present again at any 
meeting so harrowing to one's feelings. 

How can one describe that one year in 
New York City ! It is a story that cannot 



New York 1 1 3 

be told. Crowds waited on his every public 
utterance, eager, awakened and devout. Old 
men and young, old women and young, and 
children, who specially loved him, were 
closely drawn to him, and held by him. The 
children who always know, unerringly felt 
that he was their friend and lover. He had 
a sort of free-masonry with them that cap- 
tured them and captivated them. A little 
incident that came to the knowledge of the 
family, after he had gone, particularly in- 
terested and gratified them. 

A little fellow living in that quarter of the 
city, but not in that congregation came home 
one day in a state of great enthusiasm and 
excitement, and we will let him tell the story 
in his own words. " Mother, I have had the 
time of my life ! O I have had a bully time ! 
I've been to a fire ! " " But, my son, I told 
you that you must not go to a fire, without 
some older person to go with you." " Well, 
that's just what I did — I was standing on the 
curb and watching a big fire engine go tear- 



114 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

ing by, and wishing I could go too, when a 
man stopped, and said to me, ' Little man, 
would you Hke to go to that fire ? ' and I said, 
' You bet I would ! ' and he just took my 
hand and said, ' Come with me,' and while 
we were going, he told me all about fire 
engines, and some grand stories about fire- 
men saving people's lives from burning build- 
ings, and everything ! " " Well, my boy, who 
was it ? " " Why it was that minister at the 
Brick Church." The story is cherished be- 
cause it was very like him. 

His personal appearance, as the great 
preacher in the Brick Church must be con- 
sidered as a part of his power. It was 
masterful and most attractive. Few souls 
were ever more perfectly embodied. Dr. 
Ford of Sidon, Syria, who saw him only 
one night, as the Auburn Seminary party 
stopped there, en route for Beirut, wrote of 
him as follows, " The life and soul of the 
party was Dr. Maltbie Babcock, of the Brick 
Church, New York, successor to the Rev. Dr. 



New York 1 1 5 

van Dyke. He is a man of overflowing 
spirits and fun ; tall, bright, sociable, un- 
assuming, and consecrated. I can see why- 
he has justly conquered, so quickly, a high 
place in the ranks of the distinguished 
clergymen of the great metropolis." A 
leading physician in Naples, called to see 
him at the hotel, before he was taken to the 
hospital, where he died from Mediterranean 
fever, was profoundly impressed with his 
physique. He referred again and again to 
his magnificent physical frame, his muscular 
power, and humorously said that he should 
little relish having such a man attack him on 
a dark night in the streets of Naples. With 
this, one must have in mind his personality, 
protean, and magnetic, giving him an influ- 
ence that pervaded whatever place he en- 
tered. His presence was felt all through the 
house. It was hardly necessary to say " He 
is here." I recall a description given by one 
of his family, of an unexpected visit he 
made at the old home in Syracuse. Having 



1 1 6 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

to go to Rochester from Baltimore, to give 
an address, he took an early train the next 
morning, reaching Syracuse before six 
o'clock. The dear old house stood " silent 
and aware." No one had as yet risen. 
There was not a nook nor corner of that 
house with which he was not perfectly 
familiar, and it was therefore easy for him 
to make a noiseless entrance. He opened 
the piano and began to play. Every one 
up-stairs was awakened. There was no mis- 
taking the touch, his music was a part of his 
unique personality. In a few moments his 
brothers and sisters were leaning over the 
stair rail, crying, in joyful excitement — 
" Maltbie ! It is Maltbie ! " It was this 
strange, almost mysterious personality which 
made it impossible to report him. No 
verbatim speech ever quite conveyed what 
he said, as he said it. As the scientific, 
botanical analysis of a flower does not pre- 
sent the flower itself, for the beauty and the 
fragrance have escaped, the analysis being 



New York 1 1 7 

secured, at their expense; so no report of 
his address or sermon held that, which 
was so much a part of what he said ; 
his way of saying it. Dr. Purves said, 
after his death — " Maltbie Babcock im- 
pressed all who met him, or heard him, by 
the vigorous outflow of hfe, which he com- 
municated to friends and hearers. It seemed 
to be the personality of the man which took 
hold of them, and held them fast. His 
mental acuteness made truth sparkle as he 
uttered it. He analyzed it, illustrated it, 
turned it over before you, that you might 
see it at different angles. He often dazzled 
by his brilliant suggestions ; yet his discourse 
was not a mere display of truth. He was 
always practical. He put his own spiritual 
life into his teachings, that he might put the 
latter into his hearers. He aimed to make 
his people feel and then live the truth. His 
was a life filled with spiritual reality, giving 
itself, in word and act for and into the life of 
others. Of course this was magnetic; and 



1 1 8 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

in this age when practical religious vitality- 
is both appreciated and needed, his influence 
was expanding more and more." Can any 
of those who heard him, forget his pulpit ap- 
pearance ? The doctor's gown which he 
wore, after he went to New York, was 
peculiarly becoming to him, serving to set 
off more distinctly his broad shoulders, and 
the poise of his noble head ; tall, athletic, 
sinewy, graceful in form and gesture, it was 
a pleasure simply to look at him. His fine 
face was the mirror of his soul, as he spoke. 
Some public speakers might as well wear 
veils or visors closed, so far as their faces 
are to be considered as factors in conveying 
impressions of what is said. Not a muscle 
moves, except in the mechanical exercise of 
speaking. There is not a flash of the eye, 
not a flush on the cheek, not a turn or 
quiver of the upper lip, one of the most 
expressive features of the face, in moving 
discourse. But when Maltbie Babcock was 
in the pulpit, he turned a radiant face to- 



New York 1 1 9 

wards his waiting people. It was not dull 
and passionless at first, waiting to warm and 
glow as he moved on, under the spell of his 
thought. Before he uttered a word, the ex- 
pression of his face was sympathetic, antici- 
pative and prophetic. He captured the 
attention and warm sympathy of his hearers 
at the outset. When he began to speak 
his voice added to the charm. Professor 
Fagnani said of his voice, " It was a great 
gift, a wonderful organ, clarion-toned, and 
thrilling like a trumpet call." No one who 
ever heard it can forget it — vibrant, power- 
ful, sympathetic, perfectly under his control, 
and adapting itself to all his varied moods. 
He selected his hymns with the greatest 
care, making them the prelude to his theme. 
This was a peculiar characteristic of his pred- 
ecessor. And some of his people said on Dr. 
Babcock's first Sunday at the Brick Church, " I 
shall never be quite satisfied unless our new 
pastor shows that fine cultured discrimina- 
tion and worshipful feeling which were so 



I20 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

apparent in Dr. van Dyke's selection of his 
hymns." When that first service was over 
they said, " I am content, it was perfect." 
The selection from the Scripture was read 
with singular clearness and reverence, with a 
flood of light let in, now and then, on a 
difficult passage, by his illuminating accent, 
or emphasis. But it was his prayer before 
the sermon which opened all the gates of 
one's heart and brought one unresisting to 
the very altar of God. Every Sunday it was 
a new prayer. There were no worn ruts of 
trite expressions. Each sentence was as 
new and fresh as his own rich experience in 
secret prayer, that morning, before the 
service. Joy, thankfulness, reverence, con- 
fession, and childlike confidence, implicit 
faith, vehement holy desire, intense sym- 
pathy with, and appreciation of the wants 
of the congregation, and a quick and quick- 
ening understanding of his office as an in- 
tercessor, all had their place and expression 
in that thrilling prayer. Had there been no 



New York 121 



sermon following it, one would have felt a 
Divine blessing, and would have gone away 
filled. It is a source of great regret, that 
there was no one to take down a steno- 
graphic report of his prayers and of his 
sermons. For while nothing, in the way of 
a report, however full, could convey what he 
said, as the hearer saw him say it, yet as one 
did not ordinarily see him, while he prayed, 
a full report of the prayer might revive the 
strange thrill of reverent feeling, provided 
there was the same spiritual atmosphere 
from the evident presence of the spirit of 
God as when the prayer was offered. And 
now that the notes of his sermons prove to 
be indecipherable, the sense of loss grows 
upon us. The few fragments preserved in 
that precious book, " Thoughts for Every- 
Day Living," prepared by Mrs. Babcock and 
Miss Sanford, are so illuminating. Single 
sentences and phrases bulk so large, they 
send such flashes of light into the dark re- 
cesses of things never told, that our hearts 



122 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

ache for a volume of full reported sermons, 
with all the lack they would inevitably have, 
of the way he spoke them. 

It was not surprising that his church, on 
Fifth Avenue, was thronged. That was not 
a strange thing for that church, at the morn- 
ing service, under the inspiring ministry of 
Dr. van Dyke, but the latter rarely preached 
at the second service, towards the close of his 
pastorate. But at Dr. Babcock's afternoon 
service the church was as packed with eager, 
devout hearers, as in the morning. It was 
at an unpropitious hour, few people were in 
the habit of going to any church at 4 o'clock 
p. M. The tired faithful workers in the mis- 
sions, those saints, ordinarily counted on to 
break up the waste places of the second 
service, were at that time at their mission 
schools. He had settled, most satisfactorily, 
that problem of the second service usually 
so puzzling to the pastor. The Rev. Dr. 
Martin wrote for the Christian Intelligencer^ 
after Dr. Babcock's death a very able article, 



New York 123 

from which I quote, to give his impression 
also of Dr. Babcock in the pulpit. 

" What were the elements that entered 
into the great popularity and success of this 
young preacher ? He had a combination of 
rare qualities not frequently given to any 
one man ; well-born, athletic, a fine musi- 
cian, a clever poet, the instincts of an artist, 
a clear thinker, a powerful and persuasive 
orator. Added to all this was a certain in- 
definable personal magnetism, which gave 
him power over the individual in conversa- 
tion, or over an audience in preaching. 
Men were charmed with him, women were 
entranced with him, and children loved him. 
He was a pure soul consecrated to Christ. 
When he stood up to preach, all the quahties 
that I have named did their part in sending 
the truth home to those who listened. But 
there was not the slightest trace of self-con- 
sciousness in the preacher. You forgot the 
messenger, in the intense interest created by 
the message. The preacher used no manu- 



124 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

script, and gave you the impression of one 
who was complete master of the situation. 
The bigger the audience, the less tremour 
and the more confidence there was in his 
voice. His thoughts were not tethered to 
notes of any sort, and what is the more re- 
markable, there was no sophomoric declama- 
tion about the sermon, as though it had been 
memorized in the study. As you sat in the 
pew you felt yourself listening to a man 
whose soul was a reservoir of truth bursting 
for outlet. His words came like a torrent, 
with no thought concerning the polish or 
finish of sentences, and yet, devoid of art, 
they were in the highest sense artistic. Epi- 
grams flashed and illumined whole para- 
graphs ; single sentences made their dent 
upon the memory ; you felt that the speaker 
had been sitting at the feet of Truth, and 
had absorbed and digested in his own ex- 
perience, that which he was giving out for 
our consideration. His attitude was ever 
that of the soldier who had serious business 



New York 125 

on hand, even the King's, and it required 
haste. There was blood-red earnestness 
from the time the text was spoken to the 
abrupt ' Let us pray ' at the end. No won- 
der God so wonderfully used and blessed 
the efforts of such a man. He had gotten 
beyond the place where he was in bondage, 
either to vanity, or ambition for the applause 
of men. Hence no fear of criticism, nor of 
breaking over the bounds of conventionality 
kept him from being his own sincere self, 
and declaring the whole counsel of God. 
The charm of his preaching is what Freder- 
ick Robertson, whom he is said to have re- 
sembled, would have called the ' reality of it.' 
He laid hold of the intuitions of the soul and 
spoke to their most earnest questionings. 
Not only was his message fresh and up to 
date, it was always Scriptural and spiritual. 
He was essentially a man's preacher. Great 
multitudes of men were in attendance upon 
his ministry every Sabbath. And he knew 
what was in man, and believed that God had 



126 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

put every man here for the purpose of 
working out a plan of God, that every man 
had within him the power of the endless life. 
There was no wonder that great throngs 
hung upon the words of this prophet of 
God. They found their problems answered^ 
their thirst refreshed, and they left the pews 
with the feeling that life was after all an 
earnest and purposeful thing, and that they 
were commissioned to build up the world, 
by building up so much of it as lay within 
the development of their own characters." 

He aimed to bend everything to his 
special enduement of power for his work as 
a minister of the gospel. He never hesi- 
tated a moment over questions of policy. 
Like Paul he held tenaciously to the doc- 
trine of Christian hberty. But he had more 
delight in waiving his use of that liberty, 
than in exercising it, if his use of it might in 
any way interfere with his usefulness. 
Knowing so well his native dramatic power, 
and his great enjoyment of good comedy 



New York 127 

and tragedy, I asked him if he ever went to 
the theatre. " Never." Bearing in mind his 
delight in the best music, and his famiharity 
with many scores of celebrated compositions 
in opera, oratorio and orchestral music, I 
said, " How about the opera ? Do you never 
go ? " " Never." Any one, who knew him 
well, would not have to ask why. I knew 
that it was Paul's reason. But Mr. Trum- 
bull, in the Sunday-School Times^ after Dr. 
Babcock left us, related two incidents which 
explained and illustrated his reason, and 
which I here quote. " When lunching one 
day with some business men, Dr. Babcock 
was offered a cigar, and a hope was ex- 
pressed that he would join the others in a 
social smoke. Instantly his face lighted up 
with one of his winning smiles, and he said to 
the speaker : ' Thank you very much for your 
kindness. But you know I have a profes- 
sion that means more to me than anything 
else in the world. I guard it very jealously. 
I am liable to be called out at any time of 



128 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

night or day, in the service of my profession, 
and if I were called suddenly to the bedside 
of some one who was dying, it wouldn't 
seem just right, would it — if I had the odour 
of tobacco in my clothes and on my breath. 
So you will pardon me won't you, if I don't 
join you in this.' " 

At another time one of the wealthier 
members of his congregation offered him 
the use of his box at the opera, through the 
season, and instantly this reply came : " I 
can't thank you enough for the kindness 
you are showing me. But you know how 
a surgeon, in practicing his profession, is not 
only obliged to keep his hands and linen 
free from dirt, but he must keep himself 
aseptically clean as well. Now, in my pro- 
fession, I have to be even more careful than 
a surgeon, and so I must be careful about 
things that might do harm in even the most 
indirect way. You will understand per- 
fectly, I know, why I cannot accept the 
great kindness you are offering me, though I 



New York 129 

do thank you for it from the bottom of my 
heart." 

Through all the hurry, pressure, claims 
and calls to public work and pastoral care, 
and he called on every member of that great 
church in that year, he moved in an atmos- 
phere of great peace of mind, getting evi- 
dently nearer daily to the great source of life 
and power. One evening or late afternoon 
in that last January of his earthly life, we 
stood for quite a while on the corner of Fifth 
Avenue and 37th Street, watching the whirl 
of the great city's life. The Waldorf- 
Astoria, lighted to its crown, glowed just be- 
low us ; across the corner was his church ; 
just back of us was his home, made most at- 
tractive and beautiful by the combined ex- 
quisite taste of both him and his wife. I 
said to him, " Maltbie, are you at home here, 
are you happy in your work ? " "I love 
it," came the instant reply. It was then 
that I had a memorable experience in the 
manse, in this my last visit with them. His 



130 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

invitation to be with them at that time, was 
characteristic. A concert was to be given 
in New York, which he knew I would 
specially enjoy, and he wrote to me, then at 
Scranton, Pa., " Come down next week to 
the concert. You put up with us, and we 
will put up with you." While there and 
resting in my room, he came in. I had just 
been thinking with regret, of my inability to 
be present at the Retreat held in the 
November previous, by the New York 
Presbytery, where he and Robert Speer took 
a very prominent part among the speakers. 
And I asked him, if, then and there, we 
could not have a reminder of that time, so 
blessed to those present — if we could not 
have a httle Retreat in that room, he giving 
me the line of his thought on the former 
occasion. He cordially consented, and in 
about fifteen minutes returned and began, in 
a quiet but very thrilling way, a mono- 
logue on Habakkuk's prayer. While we 
were moving out into the depths of 



New York 131 

his subject and his treatment of it, 
the door opened and Mrs. Babcock en- 
tered. They were so thoroughly one, that 
it never for a moment seemed Uke an intru- 
sion, to arrest the flow of thought and feel- 
ing. On the contrary, it seemed to increase 
it. She sat down on the arm of his chair, 
and putting his arm around her, he went on 
with the rich exposition of his theme, all of 
us deeply moved by the intense spiritual 
character of that service. The direction of 
his thought, and the prayer he offered, were 
certainly the result of Christ's being in him, 
with great power. 

Soon after that came the end, that voyage 
to the Holy Land with the Auburn Seminary 
party. Letters were received from Gibraltar 
telling of the delightful voyage, with humor- 
ous sketches of droll incidents. The full ac- 
count of the trip is given most graphically in 
his published letters to the Men's Society of 
the Brick Church. One of his last letters 
was written to me, from the camp near 



132 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

Shechem, in the Lord's land. He referred 
particularly to the death of our eldest son, 
one of his most intimate friends ; and the 
last sentence which he ever wrote me, was 
this : " I had such a happy dream of you 
and Ed last night. What a good time we 
shall have way ahead." Within a few short 
weeks he had entered into that life. He was 
" way ahead." That he should have been 
taken is one of the mysteries hidden in God's 
most holy will. But his hfe is full of most 
animating lessons. It was like a benediction 
to know him, to love him, and be loved by 
him. There is a benediction in recalling, 
even in this imperfect way, these remi- 
niscences. 

Lord, let me make this rule, 
To think of life as school, 

And try my best 

To stand each test. 

And do my work. 

And nothing shirk. 



Should some one else outshine 
This dullard head of mine, 



New York 



Should I be sad ? 
I will be glad. 
To do my best 
Is Thy behest. 

If weary with my book 
I cast a wistful look 

Where posies grow, 

0 let me know 
That flowers within 
Are best to win. 

Dost take my book away 
Anon to let me play, 

And let me out 

To run about? 

1 grateful bless 
Thee for recess. 

Then recess past, alack 
I turn me slowly back, 
On my hard bench, 
My hands to clench. 
And set my heart 
To learn my part. 

These lessons Thou dost give 
To teach me how to live. 
To do, to bear, 
To get and share. 
To work and play, 
And trust alway. 



Maltbie Davenport Babcock 



What though I may not ask 
To choose my daily task? 

Thou hast decreed 

To meet my need. 

What pleases Thee, 

That shall please me. 

Some day the bell will sound, 
Some day my heart will bound, 

As with a shout 

That school is out 

And lessons done, 

I homeward run. 

— M. D, B. 



VIII 
IN MEMORIAM 



This is the death of Death, to breathe away a 

breath 

And know the end of strife, and taste the deathless 
life. 

And joy without a fear, and smile without a tear 
And work, nor care, nor rest, and find the last the 
best. — M. D. B. 



VIII 



IN MEMORIAM 

I AM permitted to quote from the many- 
tributes to Dr. Babcock, gathered in the 
Brown Memorial Monthly of June, 1 90 1. 
The article written for the Evangelist by the 
late distinguished pastor of the Fifth Avenue 
Presbyterian Church, New York, Dr. George 
T. Purves, who so soon, in another mystery 
of Providence, followed him, an article from 
which I have already quoted, closes as fol- 
lows : — 

" In the personal relations of life he fasci- 
nated the hearts of his friends. He had the 
sprightliness of a boy with the maturity of a 
man. He was full of humour and fond of 
healthy play, yet retained the spiritual tem- 
per of a servant of God. He had also an 
artist's soul. Music was a passion with him ; 
137 



138 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

song and poetry a delight. He loved the 
beautiful in nature. He had keen, quick in- 
sight, and could put his vision of truth into 
epigrammatic phrases that were as suggestive 
as they were terse. His enthusiasm was 
contagious ; his mind was ever active ; his 
nervous energy was the symptom of the in- 
tensity of his life. His genuineness of char- 
acter, his sincerity and naturalness, made him 
peculiarly lovable to those who knew him. 

" And so we mourn with hosts of others, 
the strange Providence which has taken from 
the church this noble instrument of good. 
To the sorrowing wife, in the distant land, 
we offer our tender sympathy. We thank 
God, however, that she was with him to the 
end ; and we doubt not that others of that 
party, who started joyfully on the long- 
planned journey, were also there to aid and 
comfort. We remember also that heaven is 
as near to Italy as to America; that the 
Saviour, whom he loved and served, was as 
close to him in Naples as He would have 



In Memoriam 139 

been in New York. We turn our thoughts 
to the joy into which he has entered, to the 
loftier song in which he has now joined ; to 
the music of the harps of gold by the 
crystal sea. He went to see the Holy Land ; 
he has gone to the land of holiness itself. 
He went to trace the footprints of the Lord 
on earth ; he has gone to the real presence 
of the Christ. He went to the Jerusalem 
where Jesus was crucified ; he has gone to 
the Heavenly Jerusalem where Jesus is 
glorified. While friends and people mourn 
his absence and his seemingly untimely end, 
he has reached already his reward and has 
won his crown. His Hfe has not ended. It 
is only the preparation for the life that has 
been finished and has gone into larger 
service in the world beyond the gates. 
Noble fellow workman ; thou hast but gone 
before the rest of us a little while." 

The Presbyterian Journal had an excellent 
editorial, from which I quote these words : 

" A complete analysis of Dr. Babcock's 



140 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

life and character would be difficult to give. 
He was one of those few men whose worth 
transcends estimate. Worth is often con- 
spicuous by a single talent. Such was not 
true of him. He was a man of many sides, 
attractive in physique, pleasant in manner, 
with a soul that reflected God. 

" Real worth is always a composite. It is 
never a segment, but always the circle. Dr. 
Babcock was a clear thinker, a fluent 
speaker, and one who knew the proper 
relations of things. And yet he was more 
than all these. God shone through him. 
Goodness, with him, was not a thing apart, 
it was himself. His place many can take, 
few can fill. Why God took him is the 
most mysterious of all. All Providence 
touches the infinite, and the wisdom of this 
lies beyond rational conjecture. This world 
needed him much, but the other needed him 
more ; and here it becomes us to be silent. 
His influence will pass into a thousand lives, 
and only cease at the judgment. Im- 



In Memoriam 141 



mortality begins with life. Death intensifies, 
but cannot destroy. Some day things will 
be made plainer. Until then we must wait." 

A copy of the minute adopted by the session of 
the Brick Churchy New York City, upon the death 
of our pastor, the Reverend Maltbie Davenport 
Babcocky £>. £>., who departed this life at Naples, 
Italy, on the eighteenth day of May, igoi. 

During a century and a third of our eccle- 
siastical history, but thrice has the pastorate 
been terminated by the death of the pastor 
in office. The Reverend Doctors John 
Rogers and Gardiner Spring had each more 
than lived out the full tale of threescore 
years and ten ; each had been for fifty years 
the minister of this people, when God called 
him away — full of years and honours, his 
successful work well rounded out. But the 
active pastorate of Dr. Babcock lasted but 
little over a year. He came to us under cir- 
cumstances strikingly indicative of the guid- 
ance of the good hand of God. He was the 



142 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

unanimous choice of officers and people — 
there was no second choice — nor was there 
an instant's hesitation as to his being the 
man we needed. The Presbytery of New 
York too was so convinced that Dr. Bab- 
cock's great heart and devoted service were 
needed in this city, that they adopted the 
unusual course of appointing a committee to 
urge upon him the acceptance of our call. 
Even then his coming would have been well 
nigh impossible, but for the influence of the 
Divine spirit strengthening him to sever 
heart-ties stronger than bands of steel ; con- 
vincing him that sacred duty beckoned him 
away from all the associations of an ideal 
home, and devoted people, and a great work 
well maintained, to come among strangers ; 
to enter a harder field ; to assume heavier re- 
sponsibilities. The same Divine influence 
overruled the opposition of the church and 
the City of Baltimore — indeed, moving the 
people, who loved him, not to refuse consent 
when his duty seemed clear to him that he 



In Memoriam 143 

should go. He came to us — a man ! 
* Great-heart ' in every sense ! Tall, strong, 
full of life ; with an eloquence all his own ; 
with that subtle influence we call * personal 
magnetism/ for want of a better name. He 
came trusting us, and holding nothing of 
himself in reserve — accepting us with all the 
trust and simpHcity of a child. Although 
he went in and out among us for the brief 
space of a single year, he has left an indelible 
mark upon the church, the Presbytery and 
the Greater City. His arduous duties were 
performed with supreme devotion, and, 
withal, so systematized that it was well said 
of him he would have been successful as the 
head of the greatest business organization. 
But it is not our crowded services nor the 
magnificent success, with even greater audi- 
ences, at the Ecumenical Conference, or 
People's Institute, that most clearly marked 
him as a man of God in the highest sense of 
the term. These count for much, and many 
have been the souls won for the Master 



144 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

without more personal contact than the 
Divine Influence emanating from his pulpit 
presence ; but his greatest work has been 
upon individual lives, to whom he has minis- 
tered in season and out of season, by day and 
by night, imparting to the feeblest something 
of his own vitality and faith, demonstrating, 
by his very look, his love of God and assured 
trust in Him, while winning and holding 
both strong and weak by his tactful minis- 
trations. How many have been led to the 
Saviour by this personal influence, how many 
have been steadied in their faith and drawn 
back from the brink of temptation by his 
hand, we may never know here. His soul, 
too, was attuned to music, his life itself a 
hymn of praise. From Dr. Babcock we 
have gained a clearer vision of what must 
have been the personal influence of the Man 
Christ Jesus, when he walked the paths of 
that Holy Land from which our pastor was 
called to walk with Him the streets of the 



In Memoriam 145 

New Jerusalem and beside the still waters of 
the River of God. 

This is far from being a formal minute and 
impossible to frame as a resolution. The 
sense of our loss is too recent, the shock of 
the blow too great for measured words. We 
can only bow before the unsolvable mystery 
of his death at forty-two, in the midst of so 
great a work, and the greater need for such 
a man as he. But we can at least turn away 
in humility from a contemplation of the 
Providence which has bereft us, and with 
one accord unite in thanks to God that this 
church was permitted to have such leader- 
ship and we such a friendship through all 
too short a year." 



The Funeral Service at Brick Church 

(Prepared by Dr. H. M. Simmons at the request of the 
pastor of the Brown Memorial Church.) 

Not in the experience of generations does 



146 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

it fall to the lot of a loving people to pay- 
tribute to the virtues of a departed servant 
of God in such significant terms, as char- 
acterized the two great gatherings in Balti- 
more and New York commemorating the 
life and death of our beloved brother and 
former pastor. Who of all the living has 
ever witnessed ceremonies so unique and yet 
so befitting, as were observed by these two 
great cities, widely distant, yet through this 
common sorrow bound by the indissoluble 
ties of human sympathy and affectionate 
interest. Why these outpourings of rended 
hearts from every quarter? Because the 
ascended was more than the pastor of 
Brown Memorial Church — more than the 
minister of Brick Church. Endowed with a 
multanimous nature and possessing rare 
personal comeliness, he had won thousands 
through his complex personality ; but the 
secret of his magnetic power was embodied 
in his fervid heart-love for humanity. The 
Fatherhood of God, and the Brotherhood of 



In Memoriam 147 

Man was an ever regnant principle in his 
every act and thought. 

In this funeral service as in the memorial, 
it was as though the absent one before his 
departure had expressed a wish which had 
been sacredly observed. Such was his 
power over men while in the body, that 
even in death no service was too sacred, no 
act too trivial for those who would do 
honour to the character of him who stamped 
every opportunity, every obligation with the 
seal of fideHty. And so with one mind, one 
heart, the thread of one common purpose 
running throughout, the arrangements for 
the funeral obsequies had been perfected. 
They bore the tender impress of woman's 
hand, of that one, for whose bleeding heart 
the prayers of the Christian world ascend — 
the devoted wife. For the order of funeral 
service was really the crystallization of Mrs. 
Babcock's own suggestions, who of all others 
knew best the innermost recesses of that 
great heart which had throughout the years 



148 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

beat in perfect unison with hers. As if to 
harmonize with the ever-memorable Memo- 
rial service in Baltimore, so were the funeral 
arrangements in New York. Impressive 
were they, yet happily free from those dark, 
dismal funereal rites which tend only towards 
depression. Instead, victory was the key- 
note; triumphant strains were exultant 
throughout. As an orderly plan in the ar- 
rangements, fifteen hundred cards of admis- 
sion had been issued to the Brick Church 
congregation and painstaking provision 
made for the Baltimore attendants. In this 
connection it is worthy of note that the 
most kindly and thoughtful consideration 
was shown our people, by those in authority. 
Both official and informal recognition of 
this fact has been communicated to the 
session of the Brick Church. Through the 
courtesy of the Pennsylvania Railroad, a 
special car was placed in service for the 
Brown Memorial people. Before the hour 
appointed the large edifice was entirely filled 



In Memoriam 149 



and many were gathered upon the streets 
outside. The floral decorations were em- 
blematically significant. The purple and 
black were relieved by a profusion of green 
and white flowers. The front of the gallery 
was hung with wreaths of white roses ; the 
rear of the platform was banked with palms, 
and great banks of spiraea were heaped up at 
either side of the reading desk. Nine larger 
wreaths of rhododendrons were arranged 
around the side galleries. A large wreath 
of roses, violets and lilies of the valley was 
the tribute of the ushers. The casket was 
placed immediately in front of the pulpit, at 
the head of the centre aisle. The space in 
front of the platform, at either end, and be- 
hind the casket, was so banked with syringae 
blossoms that the effect was as if the casket 
were resting in a garden of syringses. The 
floral pieces were placed at either end of the 
casket. The floral decoration on the casket 
was a wreath of laurel, placed there by mem- 
bers of the family. The wreath was tied 



150 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

with a large knot of purple ribbon, the ends 
of which fell upon the black silk gown, which 
the doctor wore in the pulpit of the Brick 
Church and which, at Mrs. Babcock's sug- 
gestion, was thrown over the casket as the 
flag is thrown over the coffin of a soldier. 
The seats on either side of the middle aisle 
were reserved for the family, the honourary 
pall-bearers, members of the New York 
Presbytery, delegations of clergymen from 
denominations other than Presbyterian, and 
the members from Brown Memorial Church. 
The funeral party entered in a column of 
twos. At the head was the Rev. Dr. Henry 
van Dyke of Princeton University, Dr. Bab- 
cock's predecessor as pastor of the Brick 
Church. With him walked the Rev. Dr. 
Charles Cuthbert Hall, President of Union 
Theological Seminary. Then came the Rev. 
Dr. Wilton Merle Smith, pastor of the 
Central Presbyterian Church ; and with him 
our own pastor. After them came the Rev. 
James N. Farr, formerly assistant pastor of 



In Memoriam 1 5 1 



the Brick Church and now pastor of Christ 
Church, affiliated with the Brick Church. 
With him walked the Rev. George S. Web- 
ster, pastor of the Church of the Covenant, 
also affiliated. After the clergy came the 
four honourary pall-bearers from Brown 
Memorial Church, — John P. Ammidon, 
James A. Gary, WiUiam A. Han way, H. 
M. Simmons, — followed by the honourary 
pall-bearers from the Brick Church. Fol- 
lowing these were the members of the 
family. As the procession moved along the 
aisle. Dr. van Dyke, who conducted the 
services, recited appropriate passages of 
Scripture, the organist playing an improvisa- 
tion. As the participating clergymen took 
their seats upon the platform one could not 
but observe the unusual fact that all were 
comparatively young men in the ministry — 
classmate, companion in travel, affiliated 
ministers, predecessor in the Brick Church 
pulpit and successor in the Brown Memorial 
pulpit. " Ten Thousand Times Ten Thou- 



152 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

sand," one of Dr, Babcock*s favourite 
hymns, was sung by the congregation, the 
choir leading. Dr. van Dyke then arose and 
with evident emotion said : 

" Let me tell you, as simply as possible, 
the form of these services. Dr. Cuthbert 
Hall will offer prayer. Dr. Wilton Smith, 
who was with our brother on that journey 
through the Holy Land, will read the Scrip- 
tures and the Rev. Mr. Stone, pastor of Dr. 
Babcock's old church in Baltimore, will pro- 
nounce the benediction. There will be no 
address, not because there is nothing to say, 
but because of the wish of her whose wish 
with us to-day is sacred. But what need of 
an address ? One does not hght a candle to 
find a sunbeam. This is a family funeral. 
We are all mourners here, because we loved 
Maltbie Babcock. And then it was his wish 
that there should be no address. Some two 
years ago he and I were talking, and he 
asked if there was anything peculiar in the 
services of this church. I told him there 



The Christ Church Memorial Buildings 
334-344 West 36th St. bet. 8th and 9th Aves. 



Christ Church is affiliated with the Brick Presbyterian 
Church, New York City, and the fruit of one of its most 
successful missions. These Memorial Buildings " com- 
bine a church to "commemorate the loving and faithful 
service of Henry Van Dyke, D. D., L. L. D., Pastor of the 
Brick Church 1883- 1900, during whose ministry, and under 
whose leadership, Christ Church was organized as an in- 
dependent congregation, June 1888." Also a Church House 
with many rooms and appliances for Church work, erected 
originally in memory of Randolph M'Alpine 1 870-1 893, 
and rebuilt and enlarged, in fulfdment of the purpose, and 
in grateful remembrance of the ministry of Maltbie 
Davenport Babcock, D. D., Pastor of the Brick Presby- 
terian Church 1900-1901." 

The entrance to the Church House is at the right of the 
Church proper, it is in the style of the domestic gothic 
of Oxford, and is really an L of the Church House which 
is a five story building completely screened from the street 
by the high ridge of the Church roof. 



In Memoriam 153 

was not, except that we omitted addresses at 
funerals. And then he said : * I am glad of 
that. I have never made a funeral address 
and I don't want any made for me.' So 
there will be no address." 

The scriptural reading by Dr. Smith, and 
the prayers by Dr. Hall and Dr. van Dyke 
were full of pathos, and stirred the emotions 
of every one present. One of the most 
affecting features of the service was the ren- 
dering as an anthem, those immortal lines 
" Emancipation," penned by Dr. Babcock. 
The music was composed for the occasion by 
Mr. S. Archer Gibson, aforetime organist of 
the First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore. 
The solo part was effectively sustained by 
Mr. M. R. Faville, formerly precentor of the 
First Presbyterian Church of Cortland, N. Y. 
After the singing of another of Dr. Bab- 
cock's favourite selections, " For all thy 
saints who from their labours rest," the 
benediction was pronounced by Mr. Stone 
and the funeral party retired from the 



154 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

church to the music of an improvised reces- 
sional. 

Baltimore's Tribute 

The field for fourteen years of Dr. Babcock^ s 
ministry, 

" The memorial service held in Baltimore 
on the afternoon of June 2d, was a rare 
tribute to Dr. Maltbie Davenport Babcock 
as a preacher and as a man. Jew and 
Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, black and 
white, gathered to do honour to the broad- 
minded and great-hearted man whom they 
loved as probably no other minister has 
ever been loved in Baltimore. The largest 
auditorium in the city, the Music Hall, was 
thronged by an audience numbering about 
4,000. Three college presidents and five 
representative ministers of different com- 
munions were the speakers. The testi- 
monies referred to different phases of Dr. 
Babcock's many-sided character. Here are 



In Memoriam 155 



some significant sentences from the ad- 
dresses : 

" Rev. J. T. Stone, successor to Dr. Bab- 
cock as pastor of Brown Memorial Church, 
presiding, said : ' His great power lay in his 
Christlike thoughtfulness for others. Dr. 
Babcock's life is fittingly symbolized by the 
vine planted on our church wall years ago by 
Dr. and Mrs. Babcock, and which has sent 
out its tendrils, climbing higher and higher 
year by year, until now it covers the whole 
building. His life was an inspiration to all. 
It was a broad life, ever ready to cover the 
defects of others.' President D. C. Oilman, 
of Johns Hopkins University, spoke espe- 
cially of Dr. Babcock's influence on young 
men. * To many a young man within the 
sound of my voice Dr. Babcock was Hke Hope- 
ful in Pilgrim's Progress, releasing them from 
doubt and despair with the key of promise. 
Bright, playful, forceful in diction, his great- 
est power was this — he knew how to reach 
hearts.' Rev. Oliver Huckel, of the Asso- 



156 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

ciate Congregational Church, spoke of Dr. 
Babcock's unusual and varied gifts. ' What 
a many-sided man he was — musician, poet, 
artist, athlete, preacher ! Every phase of his 
versatile Hfe was radiant with his own inde- 
finable, magnetic, buoyant and magnificent 
personality. He was a living exponent of a 
full-rounded Christianity.' 

" President J. F. Goucher, of the Woman's 
College, spoke of Dr. Babcock in his relation 
to student life. * He was a man of clear vi- 
sion. He saw much more than the average 
man. He looked on men, not as lawyers, 
physicians, mechanics merely, but he saw in 
each one individual possibilities. He was a 
specialist in applied Christianity — and here 
was the secret of his power with students. 
Wherever he went he inspired to the highest 
effort.' 

" Rev. A. C. Powell, rector of Grace Epis- 
copal Church, spoke of Dr. Babcock as a 
minister of the Gospel. * He had a sublime 
love for God and a sublime love for man. 



In Memoriam 157 



Of all professional men the minister must 
embody his own teaching in his own charac- 
ter. In a marked degree did Dr. Babcock 
attain and discharge an ideal ministry among 
men.' 

" President Patton, of Princeton, spoke of 
Dr. Babcock as a preacher to college stu- 
dents. * There are not many great preach- 
ers, and there are fewer great college preach- 
ers. Dr. Babcock was one of them. He was 
a master of speech. He had a marvellous 
synthesis of feeling and will, and an unusual 
concentration of thought. The secret of his 
power lay in his desire to make men better 
and their lives brighter. Attractive physic- 
ally, touching life at many points, knowing 
young men, acquainted with their phraseol- 
ogy, he was always sure of a sympathetic 
response from a student audience.' 

" The last speaker. Rabbi Guttmacher, of 
the Madison Avenue Temple, closed the me- 
morial service with a brief but remarkable ad- 
dress. He said : ' This large assemblage, 



158 Maltbie Davenport Babcock 

representing our entire community, without 
distinction of class or creed, is its own spokes- 
man on this occasion. Baltimore is within 
these walls. Here are gathered educators, 
jurists, artists, merchants and artisans, and 
yet our sentiment is one. We mourn the 
loss of one who used his great powers of 
heart and mind in the service of man. In 
Lessing's great dramatic poem, " Nathan the 
Wise," we find a conversation between a 
Jew and a Christian, in which the latter 
praises the good and noble qualities of Nathan. 
The Jew, in answer, says, " That which makes 
Nathan in thine eyes a Christian makes him 
in mine an Israehte." Blessed be God for 
the life of such a man, for the fragrance of 
his memory. In the words of the rabbis : 
* May a memory of his righteousness be a 
blessing forever and forever.' " 

" Two of Dr. Babcock's hymns were sung 
to his own music. A memorial church, to be 
called by his name and costing ^50,000 is to 
be erected immediately to perpetuate Dr. 



In Memoriam 159 

Babcock's inspiring influence in Balti- 
more." — B. U. Congregationalist. 



Babcock Memorial Church 

Baltimore, Md. 

We are sure no one has heard anything 
but joyful willingness from our people at the 
proposed change in the name of our church. 
True we have all learned to love that name 
" Park," because some very happy experi- 
ences have been found in its walls. But we 
love the new name far more, because we 
shall be continually reminded of the un- 
selfish life of a devoted Christian man. At 
the meeting of the congregation on June 12, 
called to legally accept our new name, Mr. 
Scovel was asked to act as chairman, and 
Mr. Warren Search as clerk. A unanimous 
vote authorized our trustees to see that our 
charter was amended so as to read the " Bab- 
cock Memorial Presbyterian Church." Mr. 
A. S. Niles offered his services to see that 



i6o Maltbie Davenport Babcock 



the change in the charter was correctly 
made. The congregation then adopted this 
resolution which was presented by Mr. 
Scovel. 

Resolved that, — " In the change of the 
name of our church from the * Park Presby- 
terian Church ' to the ' Babcock Memorial 
Presbyterian Church,' we recognize the 
peculiar appropriateness of this action. 

" Dr. Maltbie D. Babcock was the divine 
agent in founding and fostering this work 
which has been so graciously guided and 
prospered by the Master. None could have 
been a more loyal friend and patron than he. 
The present building was an answer to his 
earnest appeal. The completed edifice, to 
be erected in his honour, will be a testimonial 
of many friends' gratitude for a life lived so 
fully for them here, one which is being lived 
now even more abundantly in his home 
above. 

" The first name was his gift to us, because 
of the great natural beauty of our neighbour- 
ing park. The second name we believe to 
be God's gift to us, because of the great 
spiritual beauty of that noble soul, not long 
since touching and Hfting us, now forever 
abiding in and inspiring us. 

" Closely intertwined with his love and 
effort for our church was an equal devotion 



In Memoriam i6i 



from his truly sympathetic Hfe-comrade. To 
her also we owe a debt of gratitude which 
can only be acknowledged. 

" Our message to her of our deepest sym- 
pathy, our heart-thrilling pride in our new 
name, and of new consecration to his and 
our Master, passes beyond words, and shall 
be interpreted by the Spirit of Peace who 
leads through testing to triumph, through 
Christ to Eternal Life." 



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